


Good Enough

by Swifters



Series: Fifteen AU [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Accident, Amnesia, Danny Whump, Death of OC child, Eventual McDanno, First Kiss, First Time, Graphic flashbacks (rape/torture), M/M, PTSD, Steve Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-08 20:07:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 64,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7771408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swifters/pseuds/Swifters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been over two years since Danny was found after his abduction and he's been doing pretty damn well considering. Okay, he's maybe got some lingering issues in certain key areas but he's coping- that's good enough, he thinks. That is until fate turns everything upside down....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Accident

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel to Fifteen that I totally never meant to write but it just came out and it's come out McDanno... don't read it if it's not your thing! Will make way more sense if you read that story first.

He couldn’t even blame Steve.

That random, ridiculous thought crossed his mind in the millisecond it took between the moment he clocked the SUV swerving violently across his lane of the highway, flipping on its side right in front of him, and the initial, gut-wrenching impact.

He had no way to escape- there was a car to the side of him, a vehicle way too close behind him. With only one direction to go, Danny thrust the pedal to the floor in a frantic attempt to accelerate forward, out of the path of the vehicle. But there was just no time.

All the meandering thoughts which had been rolling through his head as he drove along; the current case, the crappy date he’d had on Saturday night, the fact his kids would be back from their vacation in just over a week and he _still_ hadn’t finished decorating their bedrooms in his new apartment… they all disappeared as his mind froze, stuttering as it did nothing more than try to take in the imploding situation around him.

The initial collision took moments but lasted forever. Bone-jarring impact, shrieking metal, shattering glass, followed by the sickening sensation of rolling and sliding. Then came complete darkness, disorientation, white hot pain and the warm stickiness of blood on his face.

More impacts followed as vehicles slammed into the pile-up. Danny gritted his teeth each and every time he heard a crash and felt the subsequent shock-wave run through the twisted metal around him, wondering if this would be the one that would cause an explosion leaving fire to rip through the wreckage.

Then a smash louder than thunder was followed rapidly by a nauseating jerk to the side, accompanied by the hideous sound of jagged metal scraping across concrete. The juddering halt that followed threw Danny’s head against something hard. He thought briefly of Grace and Charlie, and then of Steve…  then he thought of nothing at all.

…………………………….

Danny awoke to blackness and all-encompassing, throbbing pain. His breaths came in short, sharp gasps as he tried to keep calm, tried to work out what the hell was going on.

He couldn’t move. Hard metal was pressing on his chest and his hips and his legs. He was pretty sure he was upside down and figured he was still in his seat, held firmly in place by his seatbelt. The Camaro had to be on its roof and there must be wreckage in the cab, he figured. Why was it so dark? Was he _blind_?

He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the poisonous spear of panic he could feel threatening his composure. He concentrated instead on his body. His left arm was pinned by his side and it felt _wrong_. Broken for sure, and badly. He blanked it out. His right arm was stretched out in front of him. It hurt, but, as he cautiously flexed his muscles, it didn’t cause _more_ pain _._ That had to be a good sign. He took a few deep breaths then tried to move it, discovering he had the smallest amount of leeway around his wrist and his hand. He reached out, fumbling with shaking fingers.

Everything felt wrong, unfamiliar. There was no dash, no steering wheel. Nothing. Had he fallen out the Camaro or was it just gone? Disintegrated? All he could feel was jagged metal. He tried to move the free hand towards his own body in search of a seatbelt to release, but he couldn’t. He was just jammed in too tight.

Eyes still shut, he forced himself to relax his body, determined not to let panic take hold. He listened, trying to make out something beyond the ringing in his own ears, something that would give him hope. Help.

But he couldn’t hear sirens and he couldn’t hear cutting equipment. Instead there were the sounds of creaking and dripping. A car radio. The ringing of a cellphone started up, then another, then another. He jerked in shock as the inanimate noises were suddenly punctuated by a distant agonized scream that threatened to tear at his very soul. He clamped down on the feeling, _fast_ \- there was nothing he could do to help this time.

He wondered if the emergency services were far away. Christ he hoped they came before fire broke out. Fire had to be inevitable, surely. All those gas tanks, torn open, leaking. _Fuck_. He opened his mouth, meaning to take a deep breath and call out… and stopped. The space he was in was too small, the pressure against his chest too great.

“Help,” he tried to choke out, but it came out a whisper. “ _Help_!” The second attempt wasn’t much better. He’d have to wait, he realized. Wait until help arrived and he heard someone close by. Help would be coming, he was sure of that. He could hold on. He’d been through worse.

He heard a muffled cry, panicked and desperate. Was it fire? The stench of fuel was strong in his nostrils and it seemed to get thicker, to suffocate him. Had the wreckage caught? Was it spreading? He could almost _feel_ a distant heat growing but had no idea if it was a trick of his mind.

Steve had told him he used to be claustrophobic, and he was grateful as hell right then that that was on the substantial list of things that had never returned to his mind after his months of captivity in Colombia, for all in normal circumstances he’d gladly take it back if, along with that illogical fear, returned his many still-absent memories; his childhood, his family in Jersey, great chunks of time from his first decade as a cop and significant parts of his early years in Hawaii. So much of his life, all effectively gone.

But maybe that phobia still lived on deep down in the darkest recesses of his mind because, as he lay there blanking out his pain, blanking out his surroundings and blanking out his fears, the darkness seemed to close in on him, seizing him by the throat and squeezing. He was trapped, he couldn’t move. He was utterly helpless.

It felt horribly, sickeningly familiar.

 

TBC


	2. Enough

_24 hours earlier_

“Steven? Be a good boy and put the nice witness down now, please.”

Danny Williams shook his head slowly as he watched his partner’s lips curl into a snarl. But McGarrett’s attention didn’t so much as twitch away from the man trembling in his grasp as he glared at him from a mere two inches away. The SEAL’s knuckles whitened as he squeezed his hand tighter around the fat, sweaty neck, his body vibrating with tension.  

Steve bared his teeth before he spoke, oozing barely-controlled aggression. “Now, _Peter_ , I _know_ that you’ve spoken to Miles Thomas. I _know_ you have. And the second I have evidence that you’ve been _helping_ him… we’re gonna be back. And I will _not_ be playing good cop with you anymore. And if I find out you’ve been involved with actually distributing those weapons? That, you will live to regret… but not for long. You hear me?” The words were growled out, spittle landing on the hapless man’s face at regular intervals.

Danny screwed up his face in disgust. He took a step closer and reached out, gripping Steve’s forearm. “Babe?” he said softly. “Down, boy.”

Steve snorted, nostrils flaring, before finally glancing down at Danny’s hand, then looking at Danny himself.

Danny held his gaze. “Good cop?” he said incredulously, “Seriously?” He shook his head with disdain before turning to walk away, muttering to himself. He heard a dull thud-grunt behind him signifying Steve’s final release of his victim, then his partner was marching out of the room, pushing past Danny with a thunderous expression on his face.

Danny shook his head again, sighing deeply. He stopped in his tracks, turning back to look down pityingly at the man on the floor. “He means it, you know. The law doesn’t really apply to him like it does to us mere mortals, for some reason. You _should_ be scared.”

Just for an instant, Peter Elikapeka’s rotund face hardened. Now the intimidating figure of McGarrett was out of the room, it looked like the small-time criminal might just have recovered enough of his former cockiness to come up with a smart-assed rejoinder… but then came the by now oh-so-familiar shift of the man’s gaze as he clocked the long scar on Danny’s cheek just like so many other people had before him. Danny watched as his eyes predictably traced the length of its jagged path. Whatever conclusion Elikapeka drew from it, it made him shut the hell up.

Maybe if he knew the real story of how Danny had come by that scar, maybe if he could see the other scars that littered the compact body under the blond man’s clothes, perhaps he wouldn’t have felt intimidated at all. Being tied down, raped and tortured for months on end weren’t typical points on a tough cop’s resume. The condition Danny had been in when Joe White had finally found him- it was a miracle he could function at all, let alone recover to the extent that he could rediscover and fulfil his base need to be a police officer.

A year had gone by since Danny had returned to work at Five-0, more than two since he’d first been found in Colombia. He couldn’t say he’d put the all things that had happened behind him, but he certainly wasn’t letting them dominate his whole life. He was strong again now. Tough. Maybe tougher than he had been before in some ways, with the rigid barriers he’d constructed around his emotions in the course of his personal journey.

No matter how Danny had come by that scar, the man was right to feel every bit as intimidated by him as he was of Steve.

Danny stared Elikapeka down, chin stuck out, contempt written across his face, only finally turning away when the other man gave way and looked down at the ground.

As Danny stepped out of the house into the warm Hawaiian sunshine, he saw Steve leaning against the Camaro, glowering, lips pursed tight and eyes still fixed on the ramshackle house. Danny sighed deeply, then climbed into the passenger seat. As Danny buckled himself in, Steve folded his tall frame into the driver's seat then turned towards him, a murderous expression on his face.

Danny snorted. “I don’t think he can see you anymore. You can drop the act now, babe,” he said dismissively, then shook his head. “You had altogether too much fun with that. Poor bastard, I actually thought he was gonna piss himself.”

The transformation was instant. A broad, white smile that bordered precariously close to the edge of downright goofy split Steve’s face, and his slate blue eyes danced with merriment. “You know me, partner,” he said cheerily, starting the engine and throwing the car into drive. “Just doing what needs to be done to complete the mission.”

Danny shot a quick grin back at him as they pulled away. “Well, I hate to bolster your ego but it was a pretty effective distraction.”

“I _can_ be very distracting sometimes,” said Steve, smile still firmly affixed to his face now his eyes were on the road. “You find a good place for the listening device?”

“Of course, what do you take me for, a freaking rookie?” Danny barked, feigning indignation.

Steve’s smile got even wider, then he laughed out loud. Danny smiled too- he got it. He _was_ good at his job. He was more than competent despite being just a year out of the academy- a fact that seemed bizarre given he’d spent most of his adult life as a cop… Danny just couldn’t remember most of it. But in the year they had been working together again, the men’s partnership had returned very quickly from a rookie/trainer dynamic to something that equated closely to what the snatches of memory Danny _did_ still have suggested it had been before. Equally matched. Lively, filled with banter and challenge. Solid.

“Great teamwork, partner,” Steve murmured, before shooting Danny one of those looks that defied adequate description. Somehow filled with affection and pride, an edge of humor and most bizarrely of all _gratitude_ for… just being there? Danny had no idea really, certainly no idea what he’d done to deserve these looks. Whatever the reason, somehow it made Danny feel safe, grounding him in the moment and making his problems seem just that bit further away.

Suddenly self-conscious in the face of all that unconditional love, Danny smiled down at his feet, face heating up.

He huffed out a breath after a moment, shaking off the embarrassment, then sat back in his seat, watching the scenery go by at what was no doubt an unnecessary speed. Right then he didn’t even care. The sun was shining on his face, his belly was still full of the pastries he’d swiped way more than his fair share of on the way to Elikapeka’s house and they’d just completed their task without a single shot being fired which, with Steve McGarrett around, was nothing short of a miracle.

He was feeling happy, and that had slowly become less of an alien concept as he moved further and further in time from Colombia.

Of course he wasn’t really ‘fixed’. No one could ever be ‘fixed’ after going through what he’d been through. There were still those things that made his shutters come down, made him want to drown out life and hide in a darkened room. But those very same things would once have triggered him into a panicked spiral, or a flashback, or into feeling the undeniable need to curl into a ball and count to fifteen over and over and over again. Not anymore.

Luckily, Danny had a pile of things going for him. He’d had a damn good therapist who had patiently walked Danny through all the horrors he could recall and given him the tools to stay calm while he did it. He had a family around him who loved him unconditionally, who didn’t care whether he remembered them or not. And he had Steve. Loyal and steadfast, Steve has been his rock throughout, even while battling with his own alcoholism.

But, undeniably, Danny still had his limits.

It was like Steve was psychic, like he was tracking Danny’s meandering thoughts with some sort of freaking SEAL mind-meld.

“So… how was the date?” came the seemingly nonchalant question.

Danny’s stomach dropped. The date had been a fucking nightmare. He’d been set up and then cajoled into going by Kono and she’d picked well, of course. Sarah was a pretty girl. Beautiful in fact- he could recognise that. Long, brown hair, twinkling green eyes, slim and lithe. A friend of a friend of Kono’s cousin, and a great match on paper.

Danny had found himself walking into easy conversation with the woman- she was a cop after all- and answering her broad smiles with his own. But at the end of the night he had walked her to her car, then- and Danny couldn’t even think about it without shuddering- she’d whispered that she’d like to see him again with a gentle touch on his arm and an openly suggestive look on her classy face…  she’d leaned in towards him… and that was it.

Danny’s shutters had slammed down, cold dread seizing hold of him for no fucking reason at all. He’d run, literally. He was driving away before he’d even come to the conscious realisation that no, he maybe wasn’t actually ready to date. And he’d shut the whole experience out, hadn’t analysed it, hadn’t let himself even _think_ about it. It had taken all his energy, in fact, not to think about it, for the whole of Saturday night, all of Sunday and most of Monday up to that very moment.

So that was it. Sex was still off the menu. Relationships were still off the menu. The mere thought of that sort of physical intimacy with anyone, male or female- it was enough to send him into a tailspin if he thought about it.

Danny squirmed in his seat. “Great. She was really nice. Really good!”

He glanced at Steve, rolling his eyes when he saw his partner’s eyebrows had shot skywards, clearly conveying his utter shock. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, buddy,” he muttered, then swore under his breath as he saw the traffic light ahead of them switch to red. Now he’d have the full intensity of his partner’s attentions focused on him.

“Oh, okay. You seeing her again?” Steve’s tone was unreadable.

Danny looked resolutely away, fixing his attention on the non-descript store window beside them. “Nope.”

“What? Why?”

Danny shrugged. “I dunno.”

“No chemistry?”

Danny carefully kept his voice even. “It was fine. Just no.”

Danny could feel Steve’s eyes drilling into the side of his head. He knew what he’d see if he looked- concern. Where it came to Danny, Steve’s protective streak was a hundred miles wide. And Danny knew he could tell his partner the truth. The two men’s relationship was the rock-steady platform from which his recovery had been launched and the one place Danny knew he could always seek refuge if everything became too much…. The thing was he didn’t want to.

He’d depended on Steve for everything, absolutely everything, while he recovered, even though Steve had been fighting demons of his own. Danny still didn’t really know what to do with that. The whole Steve issue was stacked neatly in the deal-with-later box. He did know he was grateful as hell and loved the man in ways he had never tried to quantify… but he _had_ to stand on his own two feet. They _both_ had to. They had leaned on each other hard during those dark months and once they were both back on what felt like solid ground the tricky question of co-dependence had come up. 

For that very reason, Danny had moved out of Steve’s house as soon as he’d started to work and had an income. They were both functioning fine day-to-day so continued co-habitation was now entirely unnecessary. Safe and nice and good... but unnecessary. The move had gone well. Danny had a great apartment with a distant view of the sea. He felt like he looked more normal again now he had his own place. That was good.

Steve had his own life to lead, his own issues. He didn’t need Danny coming moaning to him about every tiny thing again. He was doing fine, he was doing fucking _great_. He felt strong 90% of the time. In control. So why choose to fight battles that didn’t even need to be fought? Why pick at those scabs? He had his kids and his friends and his job. It didn’t really matter a shit if he never felt ready to have another relationship. He was fixed _enough._ His life was good enough.

Still Danny squirmed under Steve’s scrutiny, and he couldn’t help but breathe an audible sigh of relief when the traffic started to move again and Steve was forced to look away.

As if it could be that easy.

“So how’d it go at the shrink?”

“What?”

“Dr Finnegan. You had a session Saturday morning.”

Danny turned his head sharply, glaring at Steve, incredulous, because that appointment had been rescheduled, and how did Steve even _know_ that? “Steven, it was fine, I’m fine, everything’s fine, can you just lay off?”

He’d maybe touched a nerve. “Hey, I’m just asking! Just showing a healthy interest in my partner’s well-being! That alright with you, Mr. Sensitive?”

Danny let out a long breath. And okay, maybe he could see it might be hard for Steve now Danny had finally moved out of his house. He couldn’t monitor Danny’s location and state of mind every moment of every day anymore, affectionate control freak that he was. “Okay, okay, sorry,” he muttered. Then he screwed up his eyes, realizing he was gonna have to be straight with his partner about this at least. He just knew Steve wasn’t going to approve.

Summoning his courage, Danny went for it, ripping off that metaphorical band-aid with a swift yank. “Look… okay, here’s the thing. I think I’m gonna stop with the shrink. It’s a new guy. Dr Finnegan’s moved back to LA and I’m just… I think it’s a good point to stop. The new guy, he wants me to try all this new stuff and… I get that I’ve maybe got a few issues still, okay? But I’m okay. I can handle it.”

Steve was staring again, Danny knew it, and for way longer than was safe for someone driving a freaking car. And he wasn’t saying anything, which meant he was thinking things that Danny wouldn’t like.

Danny jumped in first. “Look, I know what you’re gonna say… but am I not handling work fine?”

“Yes, of course!” There was no hesitation there, thank goodness.

“Okay. Am I not living by myself again and functioning adequately as a normal human being?”

There was a pause, then Steve snorted. “Well, normal for you I guess.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “So? Isn’t that enough? Now, I thank you for your concern, but lay off. I’m fine.”

For a few beats the roar of the Camaro’s engine was the only sound, then, “Danny, you know it’s okay for you not to be okay, right?”               

Danny bit his lip before he replied. “Thank you very much Dr. Freud, that’s very kind of you. But it’s been more than two years. I-am- _fine_. I just want to get on with my life and not be expected to analyse every single fucking moment. What I have right now is enough. Subject closed.”

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback greatly appreciate, thank you!


	3. Trapped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING- little bit of graphic flashback ahead.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. The images were forcing themselves into his mind and he couldn’t let them. He hadn’t had a flashback in months. This one hadn’t slammed into him, hadn’t transported him in space and time like they used to, but _Jesus_ … his actual reality felt the _same_ as the hell he had endured in Colombia. He was trapped. He couldn’t move and he was totally helpless and everything hurt. It felt the same, and now the _fear_ felt the same, and the memories of what those _bastards_ had done to him for no reason beyond that they _could_ were coming thick and fast.

_He couldn’t move, he’d been drugged and they’d tied him face-down on the table again, he couldn’t even try to fight back. He could only lie there and survive. There was a sneering smile in front of him, the stench of alcohol and bad breath, a hand in his hair. “Bueno puto,” hissed in his face. Then a second man behind him, pushing into him with a growl, forcing him open brutally then pounding into him. Nauseating, burning pain. The sickening drip of his own blood running down the inside of his thighs. Mocking laughter in his ears._

Danny gasped, his breaths rough and ragged and uncontrolled. He was losing it, he was gonna lose it! He floundered for a moment, body jerking as he fought pointlessly against the wreckage around him, moaning in distress. His broken arm screamed in protest and he cried out, then sobbed helplessly.

Then gritted his teeth together hard because no, just no, he was better than this. He could do this, he could wait it out. He was tough. He was a cop. He could stay calm.

The psychiatric team who had looked after Danny when Steve had brought him home from Colombia had embraced a spectrum of methods in an attempt to assist him to live with his trauma. Some had helped, some had not. Whatever, the result was Danny was now armed with a broad arsenal of weapons designed specifically to keep him calm when his back was to the wall… and his back was sure hard up against a mother-fucking big one now.

He went straight to the easy one; ‘Combat breathing’- soldiers were taught it to help them stay calm in battle. Breathe in for four, hold it for four, out for four. In through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the nose, out through the mouth. Steve had known all about it of course, had allegedly used it ‘many times’, not that he could tell Danny about any of those times of course.

Danny used the technique now as he fought the panic, exhaled breaths forced out between still-gritted teeth. Sweat mingled with the blood on his face, dripping into his eyes and making them sting. In his awkward position, tears of pain ran across his nose, up his temple into his hair. With ferocious self-control, he forced himself to focus on the breathing, just the breathing, waiting for the adrenaline to disperse, blanking his pain, blanking the memories until they began to slide away, until that old fear was sealed firmly behind the wall in his mind he had erected specifically for the job.

In for four, hold for four, out for four.

He was _not_ going to let himself count to fifteen. That was his own mantra, his own invention, designed to help him remember the name of the man who’d abducted him and sent him to Colombia as he’d felt his sanity slipping away, his memories disappearing. Those numbers had been his friends and his refuge for nearly two years. But they now represented that hell, they represented the dark, dark place in his head where he’d once hidden and now never wanted to re-visit again.

He couldn’t count to fifteen anyway, he told himself, because it only worked properly if he rubbed the fifteen neat scars from the self-inflicted cuts on his left thumb at the same time… and right then he couldn’t move that hand a single millimetre- it was pinned, and he was pretty damn sure the bones in that arm were shattered.

With that thought the pain came back. Danny felt the panic rising again.

He gritted his teeth even harder. _Not_ fifteen. _No_.

In for four, hold for four, out for four.

In for four, hold for four, out for four.

He heard a cellphone ring somewhere close by with a non-descript tone. His own maybe, he wasn’t even sure. Maybe it was Steve, wondering where the hell he was. He let his thoughts linger on Steve, because that was safe. His best friend, the man who had his back no matter what, the man who had single-handedly brought him back from his self-imposed hell.

Their friendship was the same but different. The foundations were far removed from those Steve had told him about from the first time they had met, when after a rocky start they had fallen easily into a relationship of bickering and loyalty and ever-less begrudging love.

This time around, Danny had been like a traumatized child at the start, clinging helplessly to the first person who had shown him persistent, unwavering kindness. That dim recollection filled Danny with shame and he pushed it back down into the dark pit where he kept everything to do with Colombia. Maybe thinking about Steve wasn’t that safe at all.

No, what came after- living at Steve’s house, the two men supporting each other as Danny recovered and Steve beat his alcoholism into submission- that was ok. Those were safe memories. If he was entirely honest with himself, Danny missed living at Steve’s house. He would never admit it, but he missed Steve’s constant companionship and, based on the fleeting sad, nostalgic looks Danny occasionally saw Steve shoot his way, the feeling was perhaps mutual.

Or maybe Steve was still thinking about the Danny he had lost. Maybe it was _him_ Steve was missing. Danny’s mind stalled on the idea and he teetered for a moment, the pain and the panic threatening yet again.

In for four, hold for four, out for four.

In for four, hold for four, out for four.

He blanked out the pain, blanked out the distant screaming, blanked out the acrid, choking smell of smoke and burning fuel, blanked the rising heat.

In for four, hold for four, out for four.

In for four, hold for four, out for four.

…………………….

Steve gazed at the images on his laptop. He opened file after file, eyes hard and lips pursed tight, as it gradually became ever clearer the man the Five-0 team was trying to gather evidence on was everything they had feared and more. How Joe White had come by the photos of the ‘goods’ Miles Thomas was thought to have trafficked Steve didn’t know and knew he couldn’t ask. 

They had already suspected Thomas, who came from a far-from-evil background in the wilds of Wyoming, of being on the cusp of brokering a huge arms deal that would bring literally thousands of illegal weapons onto the streets of Oahu. That would have been bad enough, but the photos Joe had somehow managed to get his hands on implied Thomas was dealing in more than just arms and on an international scale. Trafficking drugs and trafficking _people_ looked likely to be on the man’s list of business interests too.

Steve stopped on one stark photo and reached out a long finger, running it softly across the screen as though he could somehow stroke the face of the terrified woman in front of him and ease her pain. She was young and white as a ghost, her features suggesting she might be Eastern European in origin. She was looking straight into the camera, her big brown eyes wide with fear, her hands bound in front of her and her clothes gone. He wondered who had taken the picture. Her captor? An interested buyer? His gaze shifted to the date stamp on the file. The picture was ten months old. She would most likely have been sold on as a prostitute soon after the shot was taken, maybe forcibly addicted to heroin too. She could well be long dead.

He slumped slowly back in his chair then looked up at the ceiling. He ran his palm roughly down his face, pausing to push thumb and forefinger into the corners of his eyes. After a long moment he let the hand flop down into his lap but kept his eyes closed, head tipped back. He was tired. They’d been hard at work on the case for weeks and, although the rest of the team had had time off at the weekend for the first time in over a month, Steve himself had taken work home with him. Aside from a quick swim both mornings, he’d spent the rest of the time pouring over intel files on Miles Thomas that he’d acquired through less-than-official channels.

The need to rush in and stop Thomas in his tracks was undeniable, but they simply didn’t know enough about him yet. The team needed to bide their time, gather intelligence, liaise with other agencies. If Thomas and his organisation _were_ international, they would have to make sure they were in a position to be able to take out at much of the operation as possible in one go. They were in it for the long haul.

A soft knock at his door had him opening his eyes again. He smiled warmly when he saw Kono standing there, head cocked, bemused grin on her face. She was dressed head to toe in black and oozed effortless beauty, class and affection in equal measures. “Hey boss. I’m making coffee. You want?”

“Sure Kono, thanks.” He rolled his chair forwards, reaching for his keyboard, but then glanced up when he realized Kono hadn’t shifted. “Everything okay?”

Kono stared at him, expression hard to read. “Is Danny about?” she asked, which didn’t answer his question at all.

Steve frowned and glanced at his watch. “He’s checking out CCTV in a few stores up in Haleiwa for those robberies HPD are dealing with. They asked us to weigh in but we’ve just not had the time. I thought we better make an effort to contribute at least something and there’s a chance the gang will be casing places up that way if they follow their current MO. He should be back soon. Why?”

The Asian woman bit her lip then stepped inside the office, pulling the door closed behind her. She glanced through the glass wall towards the tech table where Lou and Chin were deep in discussion over whatever documents they had open in front of them.

Steve was suddenly concerned, because there wasn’t much the team couldn’t discuss openly after everything they’d been through together. He sat up straight. “Kono, what’s up?”

Kono perched herself on the edge of the black leather settee looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable. She cleared her throat nervously before she started. “So… I spoke with Sarah.”

It took a moment for Steve to work out who the hell she was talking about, but he got there. Sarah- Danny’s blind date, Kono’s friend’s friend’s friend or whatever. And then Steve was uncomfortable too for a bunch of reasons. The whole date idea had felt wrong to him for some ill-defined reason, but he trusted Kono’s judgement so he’d kept his nose out, hadn’t interfered. He really hoped she wasn’t expecting him to indulge in post-date analysis behind Danny’s back. That was so… high school.

“Okay…,” he said eventually, with no small measure of trepidation.

Kono looked him straight in the eye, warm brown eyes full of nothing but genuine concern. “Did Danny talk to you about their date?”

“Not really. Said it was fine,” Steve replied, physically cringing. 

Kono nodded slowly. “Steve, you know him better than anybody. Is he doing okay?”

Steve hesitated. “I think so,” he offered, non-committal, uncomfortable with discussing Danny when he wasn't there and unsure where the whole conversation was leading .

Kono apparently read his reticence perfectly. “I know this seems intrusive, but…  I’m just worried about him. You know that. I mean, I could be wrong but it seems like he’s fine when he’s working and of course he’s _great_ when he’s with his kids. But sometimes, when things are quiet, it’s like he just goes… blank. Is he still having problems?”

“Wouldn’t you be?!” Steve’s tone was automatically defensive and he stopped himself. Kono didn’t deserve that. He put a hand over his face for a second, flexing his jaw. “Sorry. I’m sorry. He’s just doing so well, you know?” He sighed heavily. “And sure, sometimes the shutters come down. But not often. Maybe that’s just part of who he is now, maybe we all just have to accept that. Why are you asking anyway? What did Sarah say?”

Kono eyed him carefully before she replied. “Sarah said the date was _great_ … until she tried to kiss him and he bolted. It was like he just shut down and then ran. Literally. He actually drove off and left her without saying a word. And she tried to check on him, she called him and sent a text but he didn’t pick up or reply. She called me because she was worried about him.”

Steve stared for a moment, absorbing her words. He closed his eyes. “Fuck,” he breathed out. He had known things hadn’t gone well when Danny was less than forthcoming about what had gone down… but he’d hoped for his friend’s sake it was nothing like _that_.

“I know this is awkward,” Kono leaned towards to Steve as she spoke, “I’m just trying to understand where he’s at. Steve… do you think he’s scared of physical intimacy? Is that the problem?”

Steve cringed. “I guess it makes sense after everything he went through,” he admitted sadly. His gaze shifted unconsciously to the open image of the woman on his laptop, coming to a rest on those wide eyes, fearful and devoid of all hope.

Kono sighed deeply, then got to her feet. She padded over to Steve’s desk and perched on the edge just beside him. She spoke in a low voice. “I know, I had just hoped… I never would have set him up if I’d thought he wasn’t ready. I feel terrible. And so sad for him if that’s not going to be something he can have now. He’s the nicest guy, he deserves to be loved. He shouldn’t have to live out his life alone because of what those bastards did to him. It’s just not fair.”

“I know,” Steve said softly. For the millionth time, he wished he could take all the hurt away from his partner. He’d gladly shoulder it himself to save Danny from suffering. “But you can’t blame yourself, Kono. You had the best of intentions. Danny knows that. Look, let’s just play it cool. He know we’re here if he wants to talk. Maybe he just needs a bit of time to psyche himself up for another try.”

Kono smiled sweetly at him. “Thanks. I hope you’re right.” She raised an eyebrow. “What about you, Steve? You seeing anyone now you’ve got your bachelor pad back to yourself?”

Steve blinked in surprise. He’d never given his own lack of love life a moment’s thought. Not since the last time Cath left. Not that he was pining. He’d been gutted at the time but he had got over it long ago. After all, more than four years had passed since he last saw her. He blinked again at that. Four years? He hadn’t had sex in more than four years?! Jesus! But no, his own needs hadn’t even registered. Everything had just been about Danny. First Danny’s disappearance and Steve’s hideously fucked up attempts at coping with that, then finally getting him back and battling to get him better. There had just been no room for anything else in Steve’s life.

Steve realized Kono was frowning at him again. He seemed to have been doing a good job of clamming up himself. And her next question had the biggest effect of all.

“Steve, I know this is none of my business but… did you and Danny ever… you know? I mean back then? Before Colombia?”

Steve stared at her dumbly, jaw hanging lax, trying to process the entirely unexpected question, then stumbling mentally as he discovered it was bizarrely difficult to formulate something resembling an answer. “N-no. Never!” he choked out eventually.

Her expression shifted subtly from sincere curiosity to something he could only equate to sympathetic confusion and it dawned on Steve that the protracted silence could have been read in a number of ways, none of them outright denial. But the answer was unequivocal and therefore his own confusion inexplicable. He shook his head. “Really, Kono. Never.”

Kono stared at him long and hard, giving the distinct impression she was reading her old friend with ease and reading things he had no idea were there at that. Then she stood slowly, leaned forwards and gripped Steve’s broad shoulder with her long, slender fingers. She squeezed gently, before bending to kiss the top of his head.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she turned to walk away, leaving Steve staring dumbly after her feeling like he’d missed a whole chapter out in a story.

TBC

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of feedback is always gratefully appreciated :)


	4. Gillian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so sorry about this chapter. I am hanging my head in shame. I am so going to hell. But Danny’s tough, you know, it’s hard to break the guy. I refer you again to the warnings above so I can say for sure you HAVE been warned...

In for four, hold for four, out for four.

In for four, hold for four, out for four.

Danny concentrated doggedly on his breathing, rooting himself firmly inside that calm bubble where the blackness and the pain and the fact he couldn’t move wouldn’t touch him.

Someone was screaming again and it sounded so close now, hammering to get into Danny’s head, clamoring to be heard. He blocked it out. He couldn’t do anything, he couldn’t help whoever was in so much distress. He had called out at some point, tried to make his presence known, but the person hadn’t seemed to hear him. At least he thought he’d called out. He was feeling weak and vague, not really conscious, not really unconscious. He knew he was bleeding, could feel the sticky pull on his face and his right hand. His back felt wet. Maybe he was going into shock, maybe he was dying. Maybe he had never called out at all.

High pitched and piercing, the screaming persisted. It echoed around his head until he started to wonder if it was coming from _him_ , then it distorted bizarrely, twisting itself into words as it went.

_“No! No, siento… l-lo siento… por favor!”_

A flash of an image came from nowhere- a battered face, long brown hair encrusted with blood. Dark eyes glazing over.

The terrible vision plucked from the lost depths within, and the flash of intense emotion attached, thrust Danny ruthlessly back to complete awareness and everything that went along with it. He cried out in panic, thrashing pointlessly against his metal prison, magnifying his reawakening agony as he did.

“No, no, _fuck_! STEVE! HELP ME!” he croaked out. His struggles slowly died away, exhaustion taking over. He sagged, trembling violently. “Steve…?” he moaned softly, because his partner always had his back, he had to be close by now, surely. But the chilling silence that followed was filled only by the sound of breaking glass and the distant roar of fire. Danny knew he was still alone.

No, he wasn’t alone at all. That scream came again, but this time he heard it clearly for what it really was. It was short and high-pitched. And _weak._ Then he heard a quiet sob and his blood ran cold. It was a _child_. A child trapped in the wreckage just like he was. His breath caught in his throat. “Oh God. No, no, no,” he murmured.

As the sensation of distant heat grew a small, broken voice said “Mommy?”

Even as Danny listened in horror, the cop side of his brain latched onto the situation and took over, infusing him with total focus on the person in need.

“H-hey, it’s OK,” he managed to croak. “Hey, can you hear me?”

A sharply inhaled breath followed and now Danny realized just how close the child was. Feet away. He felt around with his one free hand but still didn’t make contact with anything that felt human. “Sweetie? It’ll be okay. They’ll get us out. J-just stay still.”

“H-help. My Mommy won’t wake up.”

Fuck. She was young. “How old are you sweetie?” He wished his voice sounded stronger.

“T-twelve.”

“My name’s Danny. What’s yours?” He was forcing a smile as he spoke, just as he would do if he could see the girl and the girl could see him.

“G-Gillian. Please get me out. Please help my Mommy.”

He could hear the tears in her voice, picture her terrified expression for all he’d never even seen her face and it tore him up that he _couldn’t_ do those things for her. The smile fell from his lips and for a moment his face crumpled, drying blood pulling at the skin. But he couldn’t break. He couldn’t let her _hear_ him break. That was the only way he _could_ help her. “I’m sorry baby, I’m trapped too. But help will be here soon, I promise. You just talk to me, okay?”

“My Mom isn’t speaking. Is she dead?”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. Fuck. “I’m sure she’s just been knocked out. It’s like she’s sleeping. Help will be coming- they’ll get you both out, I promise. Are you hurt, baby?”

The tiny voice sounded lost. “I don’t know. I’m cold. I can’t move.”

Danny’s heart twisted, because it felt hotter than hell to him right then, but he reminded himself sternly that those words _didn’t_ mean she was hurt bad. He wouldn’t let it mean that. “Yeah, me too,” he said anyway, “but it’s tight in here. We’re gonna be fine.”

“I smell smoke. Are we gonna burn?”

Danny’s blood ran cold and he hesitated, the raw fear of that very thing happening too close to the surface to hide his reaction fully, because he too could smell the smoke and he could hear the flames roaring and feel the radiating heat... but it _couldn’t_ be too close. The tiny space he was shoe-horned into hadn’t filled with smoke, he could still breathe fine. He rushed out a silent prayer that that wasn’t going to change anytime soon before he replied. “ _No_! Listen. You’re gonna be fine. Just… just talk to me, okay? Let’s keep talkin’ till they get here, huh?”

“I want my mommy.”

That simple phrase all but broke his heart and _Jesus_ he needed to change the subject, distract the girl for the sake of their mutual sanity. “I know sweetie. Hey, I have a little girl too. Grace. Well she’s not that little. She’s a bit older than you. And I have a son- he’s younger. You got a brother or sister?”

“N-no. It’s just me and my mom. Is Grace there with you?”

There was the tiniest edge of hope in the young voice, almost as though knowing there was another kid in there too might make her feel a little less scared and alone. But the very thought knocked Danny’s breath clear out of his body and he gasped, consciousness wavering unexpectedly and _fuck_ he had to be losing a lot of blood from somewhere.

“N-no,” he stuttered. “She’s away on vacation visiting family.”

“Why aren’t you with her?”

“Well, her mother and I aren’t together anymore,” Danny explained.

“That’s sad. Doesn’t that make you sad?”

Danny blinked, unsure how to answer for a moment. ‘Not really, I don’t remember anything different. This is all I know.’ That would be the honest answer. But then she would want to know _why_ he didn’t remember. That was not a story for a kid to hear.

“Sure, sometimes,” he replied eventually. “But we have great fun when we’re together and I’m sure she’s enjoying herself with her mom right now. That’s all that matters.”

Danny jumped as he felt something brushing against his outstretched fingers, but then a small hand grasped his and held on tight. He squeezed back. “I’m here, Gillian. You’re gonna be fine. We’re all gonna be fine.”

He heard crying, soft and distant, so Danny murmured reassurance, his thumb stroking that small hand over and over and over again. He started to drift, the repetitive motions and the constant drain of his injuries pulling him away. He felt so tired. But then the fingers around his hand went lax. Danny’s eyes opened wide in alarm. He squeezed, then squeezed again, then shook them, then yanked on them _hard_.

“Gillian, _Gillian,”_ he hissed. She had just passed out, that was all, he tried to tell himself, clinging onto her with all the strength he could muster.

She couldn’t have died.                                                                                                    

He froze, numb, scrambling frantically to damp down his screaming emotions. They were hammering against the carefully built wall he kept inside and he was struggling- it was threatening to break. The darkness around him was relentless and oppressive and he could feel the matching darkness in the depths of his mind pushing hard to rise up and meet it, the gravitational pull between the two entities inexorable.

But then those tiny fingers started to twitch in a way he had felt before. Involuntary, repetitive, meaningless. She was gone.

He knew she was gone because he had felt those movements before in his role as a cop, holding the hand of a man who’d been shot who they just hadn’t quite managed to save… but as he lay there he discovered that he had felt it another time too. Another time, the memory of which had been buried so deep it should have been lost forever. But now the darkness grabbed him by the throat and transported him straight there.

Suddenly, he wasn’t trapped in a car wreck in Oahu at all. He was in a dark prison cell in the basement of a mansion in Colombia. He was lying on the cold stone floor, shivering and bleeding, weak and helpless. The poor dead girl in the tangled wreckage was gone, erased from his mind. Instead Danny was holding the hand of a young woman who lay on the ground beside him, her bloodied face broken. She gazed at him as she died, the terror in her eyes fading as they slowly glazed over. He held her hand as she slipped away. He held it as it twitched, involuntary, repetitive, meaningless.

As he lay with her, reliving that once mercifully-forgotten moment when his tormentors had finally broken him as if it were happening for the first time, the memories that very moment had robbed him of flooded relentlessly back into place as though an almighty dam in his mind had cracked and crumbled.

His old, lost life. His abduction. The endless days locked alone in the suffocating pitch black of the shipping container. The months of excruciating hell that had passed while he still had hope, still had some strength left inside, some dogged resilience against the incessant torture.

He remembered it all and it was too much. He lay there, counting quietly to himself, frozen in the moment that had once eclipsed everything and destroyed his mind, holding that limp hand as the residual warmth of life melted away and seeing a face that wasn’t really there.  

The sound of distant sirens didn’t even register.

………………………………….

It all happened in slow motion.

One minute they were taking five together in the bull pen, (but really not taking five at all because they were still discussing the case) drinking the coffee Kono had made for everyone, thick and black and hellishly strong just like they needed it to be. They were just carrying on as they always carried on like it was a normal fucking day. But then Lou mumbled something about sports results and brought up the local news channel on the big screen… and then the big man swore and everything turned to shit.

Steve had his back to the screen, but somehow he knew what had happened right away. He felt it deep inside. He watched as Chin and Kono turned to look, saw their eyes widen, Kono’s hand go to her mouth, Chin grip the edge of the table, hard. He just _knew_. His stomach dropped. Blood pounding in his ears, legs already shaking, he turned slowly to see the live aerial footage of the horrific pile up on the Kamehameha Highway, right on the route that they all knew damn fine Danny would have to take on his way back from the North Shore.

The coffee mug slipped through Steve’s fingers and smashed on the floor.

Steve knew, he just knew. He knew before Chin pinged Danny’s GPS, before Lou dialled Danny’s cell.

As the team buzzed around him, swearing at the tech table, making desperate phone calls to HPD, occasionally pausing to throw meaningless reassurances his way, Steve stood and stared at the flashing blue lights and the tangled wreckage and the rising smoke and he _knew_ Danny was in there.

He stood and stared, slate blue eyes wide and glassy, then he turned and ran.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Errrr. Okay. Don't know about you but I'm ready for a bit of Steve (and various emergency services) to the rescue.


	5. Rescue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus acknowledgements- KQ (medical), hubby (my own bemused fire fighter), IC (checking of last minute additions). Lots of post beta/bonus check tinkering though- all mistakes are my own.
> 
> Pretty sure I could have fiddled with this chapter till the day I died and never been quite happy. I have to stop for the sake of my sanity so it'll just have to do!

The traffic was backed up for miles. Steve sped past the endless jam, his pick-up’s engine screaming as he motored along the empty on-coming lane of the highway, lights flashing and sirens wailing. His jaw was clamped shut, teeth gritted together, heart in his mouth, mind thinking _Danny, Danny, Danny_. His eyes, fixed on the horizon, picked out the rear of a queue of emergency vehicles straight ahead, still a good half mile away from the locus of the crash. Every service on the island had to have sent most of its resources there.

Path finally blocked, he was forced to slow his headlong speed as he scanned for a way forward. A fire truck ahead began to reverse towards the edge of the shoulder, making way not for him but for an ambulance coming from the opposite direction. There was another one behind it, and another, and another. He could drive no further, he was going to add to the chaos if he tried.

He pulled over sharply, screeching to an abrupt halt on the shoulder in a cloud of dust. Then he simply got out of his pick-up and ran, driver’s door left hanging wide open in his wake.

Breath loud in his own ears, he sprinted between vehicles, all the while staring ahead at the winding plumes of black smoke that drifted upwards in the gentle breeze. The thunderous noise of an engine suddenly dominated everything, preempting the appearance of a helicopter which rose up into the perfect blue of the Hawaiian sky, outline distorted by heat. Height gained, it swooped towards him, the ground vibrating beneath his pounding feet as it passed directly over his head heading southwards, no doubt transporting some terribly injured casualty to whichever trauma center was most likely to have a chance of saving them.

Not Danny, he knew it wasn’t Danny. He wasn’t in the chopper, he hadn’t been in the buses. Call it instinct, call it intuition, call it spiritual connection or love or freaking whatever… Steve just _knew_ Danny was still there.

The sweat ran down into his eyes as he ran and his lungs felt as though they were about to burst. His _heart_ felt as though it was about to burst.

He slowed to a walk as he finally cleared the stationary traffic. The carnage came into full view amid a sea of blue and red flashing lights. Nodding without looking at the police officer standing at the head of the queued vehicles, safe in the knowledge that his face was all the clearance he needed to access this scene just like any other scene on the islands, Steve surveyed the mayhem with wide eyes.

Jagged metal strewn across the asphalt, shattered glass and black skid marks giving way to twisted wreckage, black and smoldering and piled high. Skeletal remains of cars on end, cars under trucks, cars crushed between cars, smoke and steam rising high as the firefighters continued to douse the site of what had to have been a raging inferno. The stench of gasoline and burning rubber and fear pervaded all.

His heart caught in his throat. There was no way anyone could still be alive in there.

But there was more noise further ahead, further along the highway. Shouting, ordered and calm, and, in violent contrast, screaming. Sounds of panic and desperation and grief. People were sobbing. Engines were running- powering vehicles, powering hydraulic tools. Bending metal groaned. A twisted cry of agony from an unfamiliar voice cut through it all, sending ice down his spine.

He looked towards the sounds, jaw dropping as he took in the scale of the accident. There had to be a hundred vehicles involved. It looked like something he associated with an entirely different context; a war-torn country, a bombed convoy, unclaimed bodies decaying in the sun. He shuddered at the connection and slammed the door to that memory shut.

As he walked on, he gave the wreckage a wide berth, pushed back by the heat that still emanated from the twisted metal. The asphalt below his feet was tacky, softened by the heat of the recently extinguished fire. It pulled him down, made every step heavy.

He felt as though he were sleepwalking.

He looked around as he made his way closer to the bustling activity. There was blood on the ground, pooled and smeared here and there. A shoe. A doll, its right leg missing. Luggage, burst open, clothes spilling out. The vestiges of people’s daily lives, torn apart.

Body bags at the side of the road, neatly zipped and tagged, awaited collection, their contents deprioritized in favor of continuing efforts to save the living. He didn’t look directly at the bags because Danny _couldn’t_ be in one. Danny had to be alive. The alternative was not acceptable. And there _was_ still hope because ahead of him, where the blue lights and bustling figures in uniform were concentrated, there was still color on the vehicles, still tires and upholstery. They hadn’t burned.  

Walking wounded sat at the side of the road, paramedics and first responders moving from one to the next. Ambulances sat, doors wide open, as casualties were worked on inside. People held each other, or cried, or whispered, or watched in shocked silence.

Steve’s eyes roamed the faces as he walked, now searching desperately for his partner because he was _here_. He could _feel_ it. He turned to look at the piled vehicles again, at the clusters of rescue workers, the multiple active extraction sites. It didn’t seem real. He had to be dreaming. 

A pertinent fact pushed into his conscious mind, forcing its way past the entirely unfamiliar mental fog he found himself mired in. He pulled out his cell and flicked it on, activating the GPS app.

The flashing red dot that should indicate the location of the Camaro down to the meter appeared obediently. That dot looked normal, unchanged, as though the Camaro it represented should be parked, whole and undamaged, fifty feet ahead of him and slightly to the right. 

He looked up, but he didn’t see the pristinely polished black vehicle that he had taken such good care of while Danny was missing, presumed dead. The car that was once again his partner’s pride and joy, the car that they tussled over the right to drive like kids. Instead he saw a semi lying on its side, a fucking _huge_ thing, crushed wreckage completely unrecognizable beneath it. Fire Officers swarmed around it, propping and clamping and cutting and shouting instructions. Paramedics on their bellies, contorted on a bed of metal, reached in beneath it.

He looked back down at that red flashing dot, then back up at the truck.

 _There_. Danny was in _there_.

Steve couldn’t breathe. He walked over, eyes fixed on the truck. He had to be dreaming, he _had_ to be. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t lose Danny. Not again.

They were pulling something out from beneath it. A body bag, a freaking _body bag_. He shook his head almost imperceptibly as he walked faster, straining to see… but it was small, too small to have Danny inside. Steve hesitated, too numb to feel relief. He stared at the spectacle of the double line of somber-faced medics and cops and fire fighters passing the bag between them from the gap where the extraction team were working down to the road. Respectful, careful, even though their burden was dead.

He looked down at the small body as it was carried past him with a quickly suppressed punch of grief. But it wasn’t Danny. Too small. Not Danny. He couldn't let himself think ‘ _child’._

Steve knew what he should do. He should stay back, find the Officer-in-Charge, get fully briefed, ask how he could best assist as the rescue teams worked in that little space right where the red dot told him the Camaro was. He simply couldn’t make himself do that. He stepped onto the wreckage, not even registering the frantic shouts to ‘stay back’, shaking off outstretched arms that reached for him. Nothing mattered but finding Danny.

“Commander McGarrett, sir… you can’t be here, this area hasn’t all been stabilized. You need to get back.”

The shout came from ahead of him as he approached the toppled truck. He ignored it, ignored the firefighters standing balanced on wreckage beside the roof of the vehicle, and the hydraulic equipment, and humming generators, and the paramedic on his knees. He focused on that narrow gap below the truck. It was tight, no more than two feet square, but he could see artificial light inside, hear a muffled voice.

“ _Sir,_ you need to get back, _please_.” The demand was insistent now, the owner of the voice suddenly standing directly in front of Steve, between him and where he needed to be.

Steve rounded on the man, then caught himself. He took a deep breath and mustered the part of his brain that still remembered how to act like he would normally act and take control of the situation. He fixed the younger man, a senior firefighter, so his uniform indicated, with a steely gaze. He found his voice. “Listen, you have multiple entrapments here. You need all the help you can get. I’m a trained frontline medic. I know you’re stretched. I can help. I _am_ going to help.”

The man looked at him uncertainly.

Steve blinked, then a flare of honesty came out unbidden. “I-I think my partner’s car is under there. I know that makes it personal but I can cope with that. You have my word. I’m not gonna get in the way. I’m just gonna help. Now Danny’s car is a black Camaro. Is there a black Camaro under there?”

The man stared, weighing him up, before relenting and stepping back. He turned to face the same way as Steve, then thrust a gloved finger towards the tiny access point. “It’s really hard to say. We have two vehicles beneath the truck and the cockpits are crushed together, one on its side and one on its roof. We’re working our way through one into the next. There’s not a lot of visible vehicle bodywork in situ.”

Steve nodded, jaw muscles working. “Casualties?”

“Three, two deceased. We’re having to extract them to gain access to the third.”

“The one that’s alive?” Steve couldn’t help the waver in his voice as he waited for the confirmation.

“Yes.” The younger man pre-empted his next question. “Both deceased are female. The third casualty is male, late thirties or early forties. He’s alive but entrapped at the moment. I can’t say more than that. Access is limited as I say.”

Steve nodded, scarcely daring to hope that might mean Danny had survived. Suddenly no longer able or prepared to talk, he walked abruptly away from the fire fighter to the narrow access that had been created beneath the truck. Without another word to anyone, he went down on his knees and slid straight in. This time, no one tried to stop him.

It felt fucking surreal. He crawled down a steep incline formed entirely of twisted metal and found himself instantly inside a car. It had been a people carrier, something like that, but it was on its side and the seats were gone and the dash was gone. There were clamps and struts in place here and there, to protect workers and maintain the vehicle’s integrity and support the freaking truck that he could virtually _feel_ pressing down from above, silent and oppressive. In the harsh artificial glare of the lights that had been set up in the inadvertently-formed cave, spatters of blood glowed crimson across the widespread coating of fine white air-bag dust like some sort of bizarre modern art.

He took it all in in an instant, then looked around again, confused, because he’d been expecting to see a body or a casualty or both, but all he could see was a lone paramedic, kneeling motionless at the back of the vehicle facing away from him. The man registered Steve’s presence and glanced around. Steve couldn’t help but feel the smallest measure of relief when he recognized his face vaguely from some other occasion. Bill? Ben? Bob. It was Bob something and his expression was a picture of surprise.

“Commander McGarrett, what are you..? We’re about to start cutting again, you shouldn't be here.”

“I think my partner’s in here. Where…” he trailed off, eyes suddenly fixing on a drip suspended on an improvised hook above Bob’s head. He traced the line to where it disappeared behind the paramedic. Heart in his mouth he moved closer, bent double, stumbling across the uneven surface of the eviscerated car, until he could see over Bob’s shoulder. He blinked, brain untangling what he was seeing. Where the trunk of the people carrier should have been was the side of a second vehicle, upside down, side ripped open.

Amongst metal and engine and just random bits of freaking car was a person. He looked to be lying on his side and facing away from them, body disappearing at a slight upwards angle into the wreckage. Only one arm was truly clear of it and that was where the IV line was snaking to. The elbow was bent, the hand limp by Bob’s knee. The paramedic’s own hands were clamped carefully around the back of a head and neck, still contained in the vestiges of the second car but with a little space already cleared around them. The white straps of a non re-breather stood out starkly on the short hair which was dark with drying blood. That was pretty much it. The rest of the body curled away from them into the crumpled metal, cocooned, or crushed, or cut.

Steve knew him right away, but his brain stalled, unwilling to identify that person as his partner because, Jesus, if it was he _had_ to be hurt bad, squeezed in like that, _here_. But then he heard a soft moan and there was no denying it. It _was_ him. It was Danny. For an instant Steve felt faint, blood pounding in his ears because this was bad, this was really, really bad… but Danny was _alive_. Steve grabbed that fact by the nuts and held on tight.

Steve squeezed in beside Bob, kneeling on the folded blanket someone had laid over the debris beneath them, his eyes never moving from the back of the blood-encrusted head held motionless in paramedic’s steady grip.

Hesitant, Steve reached out a trembling hand and brushed it softly across his partner’s lax fingers, the most tender of touches. A chill ran down his spine at the cold clamminess of the skin. Steve leaned forwards, pressing his forehead into the wreckage in an unsuccessful attempt to see the trapped man’s face. He could hear his rapid breaths. Danny was panting hard behind the oxygen mask.

“Danny?” he said, voice filled with trepidation. There was no reaction, and Steve looked round at Bob, eyes swimming with worry, eyebrows raised in silent question.

Bob nodded reassuringly at him. “He’s a bit out of it, but he’s there. Talk to him.”

Steve bent down low beside Bob, getting as close to Danny’s head as possible. He took hold of the lax fingers now, stroking the back of his best friend's hand with his thumb. “Hey, partner!” he said, voice sounding unnaturally high-pitched and not just a little shaky. “Hey, it’s Steve. I’m here. You’re okay, buddy.”

He waited, but still there was no response. “You hear me, Danny?” Hand flexing nervously around Danny’s, Steve waited a moment before looking at Bob again. “How bad?” he mouthed, not wanting Danny to hear them discuss his condition.

Bob grunted, adjusting his position slightly without moving his hands a millimeter, before speaking in a low voice. ““I’ve not been able to assess him properly yet, there’s not enough room to reach in right around him. I know he’s got an open fracture, left humerus. Low blood pressure, low temperature, fast pulse.”

Steve grimaced. “Shock?”

There was a brief nod. “Yeah. There’s certainly bleeding associated with the fracture. He’ll have other injuries too. It’s inevitable. I’ve managed to get a line into him, he’s getting saline and we’ve been giving him fentanyl to control his pain. But we need to get him out before he deteriorates. It’s been too long.”

Steve felt his throat closing, grief rising at the thought of what might happen. He dipped his head, pressed his free hand to his face. For a moment his vision started to darken, then he realized he was forgetting to fucking _breathe_. Fear for Danny, terror that he might yet lose him, they were threatening his normally rock-steady composure, threatening to cloud his judgment. He shook himself, dropped his hand and nodded decisively, because he was a man of action and knew well the only way to keep his own emotions at bay was to ride the adrenaline, stay sharp and act. “Okay, I need to help," he said. "What can I do?” 

Bob shot him an appraising look before answering. “Okay. You could make yourself useful actually. They’re about to start cutting again now that last casualty is out the way. They’re just bringing up some more kit. You want to take over from me to so I can monitor and assess him as we go? It would free up my partner to go help elsewhere.”

Steve nodded repeatedly. “Of course. Anything. _Anything_.”

The paramedic smiled softly. “Your hands steady enough?”

Steve clenched his jaw and nodded again, holding Bob’s gaze determinedly because if Danny’s well-being depended on it there was no way his hands would be shaking no matter what he was feeling inside.

Bob smiled mirthlessly, then jerked his chin down at the silent blond man. “Your job is him. That’s it. You just ignore everything else happening around you unless we tell you to move. You hold his head and neck still and you talk to him. Nothing else. You happy to do that?”

“Yes,” and there was absolute certainly in his voice. This was exactly where he needed to be- by Danny’s side, helping with the efforts to get him the hell out of there.

They got shifted about, careful, handling Danny like he was made of priceless porcelain, like he was an unexploded bomb. As Steve took over, long fingers wrapping firmly around Danny’s neck and the base of his head, he refused to let himself dwell on that cold skin and the blood and the occasional bone deep tremors that ran through his partner. He couldn’t let himself think that Danny’s body could be crushed inside that metal tomb, that he could bleed out in seconds when he was freed and the pressure was released. Instead he listened to the rapid breathing, concentrating on the fact that the man he held steady in his strong, callused hands was still alive. Losing Danny twice in one lifetime would kill him.

Pushing the negative thoughts away, the SEAL pressed his head against the wreckage again in an attempt to see the side of Danny’s face from his new position. He could see a little better than before... and he drew a sharp breath as he saw his partner’s eyes were open wide. “Hey buddy,” he chuffed, rich tones of affection in his voice. “I see you. It’s Steve. I’ve got you. You’re doing real good. You’re gonna be fine.” He smiled with a practiced façade of total confidence as he said it, because this was what he did. Positive thinking. He had a role now, he was assisting now. It felt better. He concentrated hard, almost as though he could, by sheer force of will, somehow boost the stubborn determination to survive that he knew his partner was blessed with.

He ducked his head low, hands never moving, so his mouth was close to Danny's ear. He kept talking softly, kept murmuring nonsense that would mean nothing to anyone but the two of them, as the rescue workers moved around them, systematically freeing the trapped man. As the metal that had once been the precious Camaro groaned sickeningly, pushed apart by the hydraulic spreader, Steve kept that one-sided conversation going without missing a beat. “Danny, you listen to me, just me, nothing else. You’re safe. They’re just working to get you out, that’s all. You’re doing great.” 

Steve caught a glimpse of the injured arm as they packaged it in the vacuum splint and wished he hadn’t. He was long-since hardened to sights of torn flesh and splintered bone but not when they were Danny’s flesh and Danny’s bone. Jesus, he had to be in agony. And he'd been alone, trapped in the dark, in that tight, nightmarish place for how long? An hour? Longer? He could feel fear knocking at his mental barriers again so he ducked down once more and pressed a soft kiss to the side of his partner's filthy head, allowing himself that small sentimental indulgence despite the audience because, yes, everything was shit but Danny was alive and they were together. Steve would stay with him every step of the way, help him get through this whatever it took.

It felt like the rescue took forever, for all it was probably done and dusted in under thirty minutes, but then, finally, the end was in sight. Enough space had been cleared so they could try to get him out. Steve followed every instruction to the letter as the fire fighters strapped Danny to the short extrication board. As a team, they all turned him slowly and carefully so he was finally lying flat. 

The relief he was feeling that they had succeeded in freeing Danny without incident, without hitting an insurmountable snag or discovering a concealed injury serious enough to finish him then and there, it evaporated entirely as Steve got his first clear view of Danny's face. Sharp claws of horror dug into his stomach because there was blank, unfocused terror in those familiar blue eyes and that expression, even concealed as it was by dried and drying blood, by dirt and sweat… it was unmistakable. Steve could try to convince himself it was just the pain and the shock, but he knew Danny and he fucking _knew_ that expression. It was the very same expression as the one that had greeted Steve more than two years earlier when he had arrived at the tiny hospital in the Colombian hills where Danny had finally been found by Joe White.

Eyes wide with disbelief, Steve’s gaze shifted to Danny’s mouth, somehow already knowing what he would see. Sure enough, the pale lips were moving almost imperceptibly beneath the oxygen mask. He bent closer, trying to read the silent words to confirm his worst fears. Danny was counting to _fifteen_.

“One, two, three, four, five…”

_Breathe._

“Six, seven, eight, nine, ten…”

_Breathe._

“Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…”

_Breathe._

Steve shook his head in denial. It had only been _three_ _hours_ since they had been together, sharing malasadas and light-hearted barbs. Danny’s mind couldn’t have gone again, he couldn’t have dissociated from reality again. “No!” he exclaimed. “Danny! No, you’re safe! You’re safe. You don't need to go there, not again, _please_. I know you’re hurting but it’s gonna be okay, you’re _safe_. _Please_!”

There was no reaction, of course there was no reaction.

Danny was there but Danny was gone.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback greatly appreciated :)


	6. Hospital

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and kudos- they keep me writing merrily away!

Steve sat hunched over at Danny’s bedside, elbows resting on the edge of the mattress, hands covering his eyes. He counted softly along with his partner as the blond man stared blankly at nothing. Steve knew this role well, had fallen back into it as though the last two years had never happened. It was breaking his freaking heart that they were back here again.

It had been two days.

Twenty-three people had died in the pile-up; men, women and children. On some level Steve felt guilty to be as relieved as he was that Danny’s wasn’t among the names on that particular list, almost as though his desire for his partner to survive had caused someone else to die in the blond man’s stead.

But, by whatever means, Danny hadn’t died. By pure fluke, when the Camaro had first rolled and then crumpled beneath the truck it had somehow wrapped itself around him, somehow failed to crush him and break him, almost as though some higher being had decided he’d already suffered enough for one lifetime. He was bruised, cut up and concussed but, while those around him had perished, Danny’s only serious injury was to his left arm.

The break, just above his elbow, was nasty. The bone had been sticking clear out of it and the wound had bled bad enough to make it a close-run thing… but they’d stabilised him, they’d replaced lost fluids and they’d already operated on his arm. A couple of plates, a pin or two, and the bone was back in place ready to heal. The wound was still open, packed and covered in gauze but not stapled. It had been dirty, so they wanted to monitor it for a few days before finally closing it up. They still had him on IV antibiotics too, they were taking no chances… but with good care, the right drugs and a few months’ physio there was every chance the injury would come right.

The arm was splinted now, and resting on a pillow at Danny’s side.

Danny had been so, so lucky in that respect… but in another way it felt like the outcome couldn’t have been worse.

Steve took a deep breath before raising his head to look once more into his partner’s distant, staring eyes. He stopped counting and reached out to cup Danny’s jaw, pulling at it gently. “Don’t do this again, Danny,” he whispered, “Please, you don’t need to do this again. Please, please, please.”

Danny was looking right at him, eyes half-lidded, a sliver of clear blue just showing. Yet he didn’t seem to see Steve at all. His lips moved as he counted silently to fifteen, over and over and over again.

The doctors had been tight-lipped so far for the transparent reason that they weren’t sure what was going on with him yet. They knew Danny’s history of course, but it was too early to jump to conclusions. They were running tests. Danny had suffered no significant brain injuries but he’d been in hypovolemic shock for long enough for brain damage to be a realistic outcome. The hope was it was simply taking him a while to come round properly.

Steve felt sick with dread. He was damn sure he knew exactly what was going on with his partner- he knew because he’d been here before. He’d seen that expression before, he’d counted with him like this before… and he was terrified that they were right back to where they had started before. Back to square one. Danny remembering nothing, none of them. Danny hiding away inside himself, dissociated from reality. Danny broken again. It had taken weeks, _months,_ to get him back to something approaching the Danny they had lost and the idea of having to go through it all again... it was overwhelming.

Steve stared down at his partner’s lax face, his worries warring for precedence. Danny didn’t need this, God he didn’t deserve it. He’d worked so hard to move on from the utter hell he’d been put through in Colombia.

“ _Please_ ,” he murmured. “You don’t need to hide in that stupid thick head of yours again. I know it was bad, but it was _just one hour_. You were only in there for an hour, Danno! C’mon, you’re stronger than this. I’ve got your back, partner! I promise you’re safe. Just… just come back to me, okay?”

Steve looked over at Danny’s left hand, unsure. The fingers there twitched occasionally, his partner’s need to rub the scars on his left thumb the way he used to while he counted showing through. But the hand, the whole arm in fact, was puffy and discolored beneath the splint. Danny evidently couldn’t quite manage it. Steve wondered if he should do it for him, but he didn’t want to cause more pain. He rubbed Danny’s right thumb for a moment instead, but he knew that wouldn't work, wasn't the same. He stopped, ghosting his fingers along his partner’s muscular arm. The scars there criss-crossed without rhyme or reason- they had cut him with knives, just for fun, and watched him bleed. They had tortured him to watch his reactions, to try to break him, for no reason other than they could.

Out of nowhere a lump rose in Steve’s throat. None of this was new, but somehow the knowledge that life had kicked Danny so hard when he’d been doing so well, it was just a bit too much. Steve shifted his hand back down to Danny’s and wrapped his long fingers tight around it. He raised it to his lips and kissed it gently, virtually overwhelmed with the strength of his feelings towards his injured friend.

He loved him.

His thoughts wandered to Kono’s unexpected question about just how far their relationship had gone in the old days, before Colombia. His reply had been the truth. They had never gone beyond friends and partners. There was some level of internal indignation as he reiterated that fact to himself. He and Danny… they’d fought and flirted and laughed in the old days. That was it. That had been enough. Maybe Steve had admired Danny physically in an abstract sort of a way, but it had never even occurred to him that they could be anything other than precisely what they had been.

But Jesus he’d missed Danny since he had moved out.

Co-dependence… the word drifted into his thoughts. Was this the co-dependence they had both been worried about? Maybe. They had supported one another for so long, it had been hard to be sure if either one of them could genuinely cope with life on their own. But as it turned out they had both managed fine on their own. Or so he had thought. Danny had anyway.

He smiled faintly as he remembered the look of pride on Danny’s face when he had opened the door to the team to welcome them for their first meal and movie night in his new apartment. But for Steve… okay, it was admittedly hard not to be able to just look over at Danny whenever he wanted to simply to check he was okay. He’d been missing for two years after all, two years that had been hell on everyone, but had nearly destroyed Steve.

But it was more than that. The house felt empty. Steve missed the companionship. He missed that rush of astonishment and pride he felt every single time he so much as looked at Danny because the man was back and he was still Danny after everything that had happened. And, okay, maybe he missed the dry, mocking humor too. And the way Danny grumped about food and clothes and sand in his shoes. The way his eyes crinkled up when he was thinking. It was pretty damn stupid given he saw the man for hours every day anyway, but the truth was he just missed Danny.

His breath hitched and he gritted his teeth, forced the welling emotions back down. “C’mon Danny,” he hissed. “You’ve beaten worse than this. C’mon buddy.” He huffed out a soft breath, then ran the fingers of one hand softly across Danny’s cheek. He traced his cheekbone, then the line of the wicked old scar. “Please, babe, come back. I can’t… I’ll do _anything_ , please, just _come back_.”

…………………………

Danny stared ahead dully.

The cell was dark and dank and smelled of the contents of the bucket in the corner. He was lying curled on his side on the floor, naked. His body felt heavy. He’d been drugged again, used again, thrown back in the cell again. Everything hurt. He didn’t understand why they still enjoyed making him suffer. He was thin now, his body littered with injuries, a scruffy beard on his chin. He had to have lost whatever physical appeal he had once held for them by now, surely. And hurting him could hardly feel like a conquest anymore. The fight had gone out of him. He didn’t shout at them now, didn’t swear. He just lay there, staring into the distance until it was over and imagining he was far, far away.

But for all he had no strength left, they hadn’t broken him. He still had that fire, deep inside, the one that gave him the will to simply want to live, the hope he would get back to his kids and his friends one day.

But it was getting so hard. It felt like he’d been where he was forever, waiting for Steve to come get him forever. He kept holding on, kept hoping, kept praying he wouldn’t let everyone down by dying before they finally found him. He kept counting too, determined to keep hold of that magic number even if the face that went with it slipped from his memory.

The lock on the door clanged open.

They were coming again. He couldn’t move. He was too exhausted, too weak, the drug’s grip on him still too strong. A pair of legs came into his field of vision. He didn’t even try to look.

Then the strangest thing happened. He heard a soft voice. Felt a gentle touch on his face. A soft towel and warm water pressing against his skin. Someone was bathing his aching body with a touch so tender it brought tears to his eyes.

“Lo siento… lo siento,” the voice whispered as he moaned quietly. _I'm s_ _orry... I'm sorry._ And the voice- it was new to him. A woman. It was a woman.

That soft voice whispered “Agua.” A hand lifted his head and shaking fingers ran around his lips, dripping ice cold water into his parched mouth. Panicked, he tried to jerk away. That was how they drugged him and he’d learned to fear it. But the gentle hand persisted and the water tasted so clean, so pure, that he gave in and let it happen. Drop after drop fell onto his tongue. It was like heaven. He tried to focus on the blurred face in front of him and saw two warm, brown eyes full of sorrow and kindness and fear. He watched them, mesmerised.

It all faded away. He drifted.

But then she was back and it was so badly different and she was _screaming_ in terror and the fat one, the one who stank of cigarettes and whiskey and who always bit Danny’s shoulder as he came, he had hold of her by her hair and he pushed her onto the floor and he kicked her face, then dropped her. He pointed at Danny, glaring at the bleeding woman.

“Tú Io ayudaste.” _You helped him!_

 

She shook her head violently, eyes wide with terror. Fat Man raised his fist.

 “No, p-please,” Danny croaked, and those were the first words to pass his lips for weeks so they made the Colombian stop and turn and stare, then smirk.

Then it was _Danny_ he was holding by the hair, dragging him up, pushing him back until he hit the wall. Fat Man pinned him against it, leaning hard. Danny looked in the man’s cold eyes and he just knew what was going to happen. He tried to raise his hands, tried to muster the strength to defend the poor woman. There was just nothing there, he had nothing to fight with. Utter desperation and hopelessness swept through him and his face crumpled. “No-no. Don’t hurt her. P-por favor,” he choked out, knowing it was useless but _Jesus_ , he had to try something.

Fat Man’s words cut through to Danny’s soul. “Es tu culpa, chupa.” _It’s your fault, cop._

Danny sobbed weakly. “ _Please_ ,” he implored. “I’ll do anything. Please.”

But the man merely tightened his grip on Danny’s hair and pressed his face in closer, the familiar stench of his breath rank and inescapable and forever intrinsically linked with pain. “You watch,” he hissed, his accent thick, his voice as deadly as poison, “You watch what happen when someone help you. You are _nothing_.”

…………………………………….

Steve jerked awake, sitting up bolt upright in the hospital chair. The hairs prickled on the back of his neck, a shudder running clear down his spine. Something was different. Something was wrong. His eyes automatically sought out Danny and his partner was still there in the bed, but everything had changed. His eyes were now squeezed tight shut, sweat was pouring off him and he was breathing hard.

Steve still had Danny’s right hand in his own and he tightened his fingers around it gently. “Danno?” he whispered.

It was like pulling a trigger. The tense quiet erupted into complete and utter pandemonium in the blink of an eye.

Uttering a hoarse cry, Danny threw himself bodily from the bed, IV poles upending, tubes yanking free, his splint thumping hard off the floor with a hollow ‘crack’.

Alarms blared and Danny shouted out again and he was shouting in freaking _Spanish,_ broken and fearful, begging for someone to _stop._ Then he was on his side on the ground, curled around that injured arm, good hand raised protectively, eyes wide and shocked. The pain of his injuries didn’t even seem to register as he pushed out hard with his feet to propel himself backwards, sliding his body across the floor, away from the lights and the door and _Steve_.

Steve followed him to the ground, dropping to his knees. He made to grab for Danny’s good arm but then, registering the utter terror in those familiar eyes, he caught himself and stopped. He backed off, raised his hands up. Medical personnel were running in but Steve turned and shook his head. _“Wait,_ ” he snapped.  

Danny’s back was hard to the wall now but he was still pushing with his feet as though he could retreat yet further. He was counting fast and hard… and he was _looking_ at Steve. The dread in the pit of Steve’s stomach took a tighter grip, because Danny _saw_ him but he was _still_ trembling from head to foot, he was _still_ terrified. He didn’t seem to recognize him. Steve’s worst case scenario seemed to be coming to fruition before his very eyes.

Heart in his mouth, Steve shuffled closer on his knees, slow and careful, hands open. “Danny?” he said, voice low and damn it but he couldn’t keep the waver out of it, “It’s me, it’s Steve. You’re okay, you’re safe. You’re in Oahu. C’mon babe, trust me. You’re safe.”

Danny’s clear blue eyes fixed on Steve’s at that and he froze, breathing hard.

“C’mon Danno,” Steve urged quietly, “look at me. _You know me_.” He prayed silently that that was still true.

Danny looked at Steve in utter confusion and Steve held his breath.

“S-Steve?” Danny croaked.

The jolt of relief that ran through Steve was like electricity and he couldn’t help the shaky smile that twisted his lips. His vision blurred, eyes filling without warning because Danny still _knew_ him.

But there was still terror in Danny’s eyes- that hadn’t changed- and Steve shook himself. He shuffled forwards yet further, close enough to touch now, and he raised a careful hand towards Danny’s face, resting the other on his partner’s knee. He blanked the flinch his movements caused because they’d been here before and he _knew_ Danny would benefit from the simple reassurance his touch could provide. He cupped Danny’s cheek and leaned in close, looking into his eyes, expression earnest. “Shhhh, you’re okay, Danno. Listen to me, babe. You were in a car crash. You’re a bit banged up but you’re gonna be okay. You hear me?”

Danny, panting for breath, held his partner’s gaze desperately, as though the connection between them was the only thing keeping his head above water. His good hand rose slowly and latched onto the front of Steve’s shirt, gripping tight.

Steve could virtually see Danny’s mind working, trying to make sense of what had happened, what _was_ happening, sorting through sights and memories. He gave him time, kept on murmuring quiet reassurance, kept rubbing his thumb across Danny’s cheek.

Steve had no idea what was going through Danny’s mind, no idea what he was thinking, but he automatically expected his partner to calm down as he began to get his bearings so what actually unfolded next shocked him to the core. It was like watching another freaking car wreck in slow motion and being utterly helpless to prevent it from happening.

Something inside Danny’s mind seemed to fall into place and understanding crossed his face, but instead to relaxing, instead of being reassured, he seemed to virtually implode. His face twisted into an expression of horror and grief and tears began to slide down his cheeks.

“Danny, babe, you’re okay, it’s okay,” Steve murmured in confusion, sliding his hand round the nape of the blond man’s neck and squeezing gently. But whatever was going on with Danny was well beyond being eased by simple platitudes.

Still Danny’s eyes were _pleading_ with him, begging like Steve could somehow make it all better, make it all go away, and Steve gasped at the depth of loss and the pain he could see there. Danny’s lips were moving like he didn’t know what to say, like he was totally overwhelmed. He looked like he was at the point of complete emotional breakdown and Steve couldn’t do a damn thing to help him.

The medical staff were moving in around them now, but Danny’s gaze was still fixed on Steve’s so Steve saw the exact moment when it all changed. Something shifted. In the blink of an eye the door slammed shut, the shutters came down. The pain and grief on Danny’s face disappeared and it was replaced by a blank stare. That connection between them, so deep, so close, closed off as though a wall ten miles high was flung up between them in an instant.

 “Danny?” Steve rasped, mouth suddenly dry, heart beating at a hundred miles an hour. “Speak to me, tell me what’s happening with you, _please_.”

But Danny glared right at him, cold and distant. “M’fine,” he rasped.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback greatly appreciated!


	7. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone leaving comments and kudos, you make it feel worthwhile :)
> 
> Bonus Ch7 thanks- KQ (medical), AP (mental health), PP (couple of great phrase suggestions for Day 4 in addition to the normal help/advice), IC (general greatness, reading of things at stupid o'clock in the morning).  
> I have done a load of post-beta tinkering so no doubt mistakes have crept in... I'll sort 'em as I spot 'em!
> 
> This one is kinda long, I hope you like it. There will be a happy ending, I promise!

_DAY ONE_

They pulled up outside Danny’s apartment block after a journey passed without a single word exchanged.

Danny, dark sunglasses partially concealing his yellowing bruises, was apparently staring out the side window of the pick-up, head pointed doggedly away from Steve. He didn’t seem to register his partner’s repeated furtive glances. Then again it was pretty hard to tell as Danny hadn’t actually looked Steve in the eye since that inexplicable moment six days earlier when everything had changed, when Steve had held Danny on the floor of his hospital room, looking on helplessly as he fell apart then came back together again a cold and distant stranger.

Clearly Danny had been seriously affected by the accident, for all he claimed he barely remembered it- just snatches of images, no more- and Steve believed him in that. He might have changed but Danny was no liar. And it made sense, it was understandable after the injuries, the trauma of the entrapment, after having been in shock. Amnesia was hardly a new thing to them… but _this_ was new. Never, never before had Danny withdrawn from _Steve_. He seemed to be tolerating his presence, but that was it.  

Steve had absolutely no fucking clue what was going on in his head or what the hell he could do to help him because his partner simply wouldn’t let him in. For the first time in years, Steve couldn’t read him at all and frankly it scared the shit out of him.

Admittedly, Danny was still drifting in a haze of painkillers. He was a mess from head to foot between whiplash, strained muscles in his neck and his back and his legs, the perpetual headache that had yet to ease and that smashed arm, not to mention the numerous bruises and cuts, some stitched, some not. His behaviour could easily be explained by his list of ills.

Still, it all felt _wrong_. Steve was watching carefully, trying to add things up. Quiet, withdrawn, moody. Defensive. Abrupt, teetering on the edge of downright rude. His mind screamed _PTSD, it’s freaking PTSD again_ … but so, so different from last time.

However, for all he was barely speaking, Danny had somehow successfully answered enough questions the right way to put his doctors at ease meantime. ‘Give him time, don’t panic yet. Keep an eye on him,’ Steve had been told discretely. It was freaking easy for them to say. Steve felt as though he was walking on eggshells, as if this tension-laden quiet wouldn’t last and a dark storm must be brewing, a catastrophic outburst of biblical proportions imminent. He was torn between goading Danny like he would have done years earlier, thinking the release might do him good, or doing what the doctors had advised and giving him space and time to let him work through… whatever the hell the accident had left him working through.

No sooner had Steve reached to switch off the ignition than Danny was fumbling for the door release. He threw a mumbled “Thanks, see ya,” in Steve’s general direction then, without further ado, he struggled to his feet and began to shuffle painfully towards the complex entrance.

Stunned by the abrupt dismissal, Steve watched Danny in disbelief for a long moment, before turning to pull the overnight bag Danny had apparently completely forgotten about from the back seat of the Silverado. He climbed out the vehicle, eyes fixed on his partner’s slowly retreating form, then slung the bag over his shoulder and followed after him. He caught up quickly and fell into step a few paces behind Danny, wincing in sympathy at his friend’s pained movements but already knowing better than to offer to help.

When Danny reached the door of his apartment he stopped in front of it, staring at it, breathing hard, good fist clenched tight. Steve finally stepped alongside him and, without a word, pulled Danny’s apartment keys out of his pocket and handed them over. He watched as Danny unlocked the door then followed him in, straight through the hall to the livingroom. Danny threw his sunglasses down on the coffee table then turned to glare at him.

“You don’t have to stay you know,” he said, and his quiet voice held an ominous tone. “We weren’t gonna be _dependent_ on each other anymore. Remember?” He spat out the word ‘dependent’ like it left a bad taste in his mouth and Steve’s stomach tightened.

It was the most he’d heard Danny say since he’d come round, and it left Steve blinking in confusion because, yes, they had said that to each other, but it had been a mutual decision, there was no malice, no ill-feeling. Or so he had thought. But it wasn’t the moment to split hairs. “Yeah, but Danny,” he started to argue, “I mean you’ve got a broken arm and you’re still sore as hell, a little help hardly counts as….”

And suddenly the quiet, withdrawn figure of the last few days was gone and _now_ Danny was looking at him alright, eyes blazing, face reddening, body vibrating with fury. “I said you can go!” he spat. “I can manage fine myself. Haven’t you got work to do? That ass Thomas is still out there and you want to sit here watching me do nothing?”  

Genuinely shocked at the outburst, Steve felt his own temper rising as a reflex but he stamped down on it hard and instead held his hands up in an attempt at appeasement. He kept his voice neutral. “I hear you, Danny, but I can work from here. We’re just on intel and surveillance at the moment. Nothing I can’t do from your place. Chin’s gonna keep me up to date, it’s all arranged. Okay?”

Danny didn’t respond. He stood there, good fist opening and closing, jaw muscles working.

Steve pressed on, determined to push home his case to stay. “Danny,” he said softly, “I’m not sure what’s going on with you but this,” he pointed at his partner, “this isn’t you. I’m worried as hell about you. I get you don’t want me here. I get that loud and clear. But even if you really don’t need me here right now, which is up for debate by the way, _I_ need to be here. How’s that?”

Danny stared at him and Steve braced himself for another furious outburst. Then the anger abruptly drained away. Danny deflated, gaze sinking downwards, suddenly looking nothing but sore and exhausted. “Yeah. Whatever. I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

He started towards his bedroom, but Steve reached out and touched his arm, stopping him. He so badly wanted Danny to talk to him, to tell him what the hell was going on in his head. But then he contemplated the tired, red eyes that were once again working overtime to avoid his gaze and he caved entirely. “Okay. Fair enough,” he said in a gentle voice. “I’ll dig out your painkillers and antibiotics, bring them through when you’re due. Do you want a hand to get settled? Get your shirt off over the splint?”

Danny hesitated. For a second it looked like he was going to reply, then he shook his head, pushed past Steve and he was gone, bedroom door slamming behind him a few moments later.

As Steve stood there in the empty livingroom it struck him that there was a certain element of irony that life had rendered Danny Williams more emotionally constipated than he had ever been.

_DAY TWO_

Steve closed Danny’s front door behind him as quietly as he could.

He had gone out early for groceries having got pretty much no sleep whatsoever on Danny’s sofa, pre-occupied as he was listening to his partner pacing around in his bedroom. Things had finally fallen silent around 5.30 in the morning. He looked at his watch. 8am. Danny’s meds were due but Steve was loathe to wake him if he was getting some much-needed sleep.

He closed his eyes and huffed out a breath, then walked through into the kitchen and began putting the groceries away, playing for time. His tired gaze persistently wandered to the sea which was just visible in the distance between buildings, pulling at him, teasing him. He would kill to go for a swim but he didn’t dare leave Danny by himself for long. It felt wrong, like something disastrous would happen if he let his attention wander.

Shaking his head at the shittiness of the situation, he pulled open a cupboard to begin to stow away the junk food he’d bought. He’d picked up a selection of Grace and Charlie’s favorite treats at the store. The kids were due home the next day and he was really hoping their presence would give Danny a much-needed boost.

He froze. There was a bottle of whiskey right at the back of the top shelf, still in its box. Steve stared at it, taken aback. Danny didn’t keep alcohol in the house. Steve was an alcoholic- he couldn’t drink anymore- so by choice Danny didn’t drink either, it was as simple as that. He looked closer. Bowmore, ten years old; a decent single malt. It wouldn’t have been cheap. There was a tag on it, he realized, and reached up to pull the box forwards to investigate, overwhelmed with curiosity. He turned the tag over to find a handwritten note.

_Welcome to your new home!_

_from Abigail, Apartment 2._

_Bring it by one evening- maybe we could get to know each other!_

Steve read it again, blinking. Did Danny have an admirer? He wondered for a moment if Danny and Abigail _had_ shared a drink that he had never been told about, feeling a stab of… _something…_  at the concept. Then he shook himself. After what had happened with the blind date the answer was obvious.

He frowned at his own reaction because what the hell had that been? Protective, that was it. He grabbed at the explanation and held on with both hands. Yes, he was just feeling protective. He didn’t want Danny’s vestigial weaknesses to be laid open to the judgement of strangers. He didn’t want Danny to get hurt. He wasn’t jealous because that would be ridiculous. He snorted. Kono had a lot to answer for, he thought illogically, messing with his head with her supposedly innocent questions.

Restraining himself from opening the box to confirm his assertion was correct and the contents of the bottle remained untouched, he shut down that confused train of thought. He put the whiskey right back where he’d found it, as close to being out of his own reach as possible.

He checked his watch again. It was 8.15 now and Danny would need to eat before he took his meds which would be an additional delay. He’d have to wake him up.

Bracing himself, Steve knocked on Danny’s bedroom door.

His stomach clenched when there was no response and, without even thinking, he pushed the door open. “Danny?”

There was his partner, sitting hunched and unmoving on the edge of the bed, gaze unfocused. He didn’t seem to notice Steve at all and the twist in Steve’s gut tightened further. He took in his partner’s appearance. He was still in same clothes as he had been late the previous night when Steve had taken him in a sandwich, juice and medication. The sandwich sat untouched on the plate where he’d laid it and Steve cursed himself for not coming in again to check Danny had eaten, not that he could exactly make him eat.

Steve walked over hesitantly. “Hey. You okay?”

Danny looked up with a start, then grimaced in pain and looked back down at the floor. He just seemed… lost. Yet again Steve yearned to take him by the shoulders and shake him, make him talk to him.

Steve licked his lips nervously. The situation felt ridiculous. This should be easy, everything had always been easy between them. Sometimes filled with bitching and banter, yes, but always upfront and honest, never awkward and uncomfortable like this.

“Okay, buddy. Time for breakfast. You want a hand getting changed?” Steve’s gut clenched to the point of outright nausea as he asked, which was all wrong too. Steve had helped Danny with his personal care during his recovery while he regained strength and re-learned basic skills, until he could fend for himself. Their close relationship had meant it had never been an issue, never been a problem, he’d never even given it a second thought. But now….

Danny’s lips moved but he failed to come out with a reply, evidently as unsure as Steve. If he did need help he clearly wasn’t going to admit it. At least he didn’t seem as tightly wound as he had the day before, like an overheated pressure cooker about to blow. Now he just seemed _beaten_.

Steve decided to take a chance. “I’m sure you can manage to change your sweats if you want to, but this splint’s gonna make your shirt a pain in the ass. Let’s get it done.”

Without another word, Steve brought a fresh shirt over from Danny’s wardrobe and set to unbuttoning the one he had on. Danny co-operated in silence. The tension in the room was palpable.

Steve held the shirt still as Danny pulled out his good arm, then he eased it down over the splint on the other side. He focused purposefully not on what they were doing but on the injuries he could see, determined to take the opportunity to assess the healing wounds.

“You wanna wash?” he asked quietly, satisfied and hugely relieved that he could see nothing amiss, nothing crying out for attention.

There was an almost imperceptible shake of Danny’s head.

“Okay.” Steve opted not to argue. Danny’s begrudging co-operation felt like enough of a victory right then. He slid the sleeve of the clean shirt over the splint carefully, placing the garment around Danny’s shoulders, then moved to the other side, holding the shirt in place for Danny to push his good arm through. He buttoned it up then strapped on Danny’s sling and eased the splinted arm into it.

Throughout the whole process Danny didn’t utter a word.

Job done, Steve suddenly felt completely drained, physically and emotionally. He sat down beside his partner, ran a hand down his long face and sighed deeply. “So Grace and Charlie are back tomorrow morning,” he offered, desperate for a safe topic of conversation before they started to broach breakfast and drugs and the fact Steve had been shopping for Danny without asking. Steve could virtually see the arguments queuing up in front of them and if felt fucking exhausting.

But as it turned out it wasn’t that safe a subject after all. He felt Danny stiffen beside him and, puzzled, he turned his head in an attempt to read his reactions. “You want me to call Rachel once they’re home? Bring ‘em over?” he offered.

Danny shook his head, face expressionless.

Steve’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? Why?!”

Danny cleared his throat. It sounded painfully dry. “They’ll be too tired,” he croaked. “They’ll need to sleep.”

“Maybe, but they’ll want to see you anyway. They’ve been worried about you.”

There was a silence, the tension in the room rising yet further. “Then _I’m_ too tired. I’m fucking tired, okay?”

Steve hesitated, completely taken aback. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

Then Danny was on his feet, hobbling away from Steve over to the other side of the room. When he ran out of floor he stood, facing the wall. “I slept fine. _I’m_ fine. Can you just drop it?”

“Drop it? What am I meant to tell Gracie, _Danno_? Why don’t you want to see them? You’ll have to do better than ‘tired’. I’ve seen you half-dead before and all you wanted to do was see Gracie.” Then he frowned. Danny was shaking. He was fucking _shaking,_ head to foot.

Totally unsure what to do, but too concerned to do nothing, Steve got to his feet and walked over to stand just behind his partner. He went to reach out for him but stopped himself. “Danny… Danny, this isn’t you. You always, always want to see those kids.” He hesitated, trying to make sense of Danny’s thought processes and failing. “You don’t want them to see you like this- is that it?” he guessed. “If that’s the case you _know_ something’s wrong.”

Danny just shook his head, not really denying, just not _answering_.  

Steve huffed in frustration. “Jesus Danny, please will you just talk to me?! After everything surely you know there’s nothing, _nothing_ you can’t tell me? I love you, I’ve got your back always. Remember?”

“I’m fine. I can handle it.” But now Danny’s voice was wavering. He was at the point of losing it- breaking down or exploding in a fit of temper, it could go either way.

Now Steve did reach out and touch his shoulder. He felt the muscles jerk beneath his fingers. “Danny, you can’t go on like this. I told you last week it was okay for you not to be okay and that was _before_ the accident. Jesus, Danny. PTSD is a bastard and I’m damn sure that’s what’s going on here. You’ve _gotta_ see that yourself. You’re all over the place, you’re tense, you’re angry. You were doing so great before the damn accident. You were totally on top of it and in control. I’m proud of you… but it’s okay if this has set you back. We can handle it but you can’t bottle it up like this. You should _know_ that.”

Danny laughed, high-pitched and desperate. “I’m fine. I ju- I just want a chance to work through things myself. _Please_.”

Steve shook his head. “D, that’s just not how it works. You get that you need to talk to someone, right? I would really, really like it if you would talk to me and I think you need to go see whoever it was that’s replaced Dr Finnegan too. Or someone else, _anyone_. I’ll find someone good, fix it up for you.”

There was a protracted silence and Steve started to think maybe, maybe he was getting through. Then that fucking switch flicked again.

Danny whirled round, furious, good hand flashing out to steady himself against the wall as he nearly went down.  “Look, I’ve done two solid years of therapy. I get it! I can do it myself blindfold. I can handle it, okay? I just need some fucking space. Will you just _back off_?!”

“Yeah, it looks like your handling it real well, buddy,” Steve growled out sarcastically before he could stop himself. He spun on his heel, turning his back before Danny had a chance to react. Cursing his own lack of restraint, he marched out the room before either of them could do more damage.

“Breakfast’s ready in five,” he threw back over his shoulder, business-like.

Behind him he heard the distinctive thump of a fist striking the wall, but he kept right on walking.

 _Shit_. Steve slammed about in the kitchen, pulling any old shit together for breakfast. Shit, shit, _shit_ he had handled that badly. A lump rose in his throat and he stopped, leaning hard on the kitchen table, head bowed, breathing heavily. 

He felt the pull of the whiskey in the cupboard.

 

_DAY THREE_

It wasn’t getting any easier. The tension in the apartment was nearly unbearable and it was pushing Steve away and, God, he wanted to leave. But at the same time it was keeping him close because it wasn’t right, it wasn’t them, it wasn’t Danny. He was _ill,_ he needed help and he just wouldn’t accept it.

Danny hadn’t asked him to leave again though, and that was one good thing amongst all the bad. Maybe on some level he really did want Steve there. It was hard to tell- he was back to being silent. He was even letting Steve help him to an extent without comment, but it was all so damn hard. The tension that rippled between them became positively explosive when they were interacting, when they were talking or even just physically close to one another. It was life on a knife edge.

Steve was burying himself in work at every opportunity, laptop set up at the kitchen table. It was dull, it was tedious. He was a man of action, and trawling through financials and endless loops of CCTV from around the globe was mind-numbing. When he felt his attention drift he would bring up the image of that poor woman, the one who had lost all hope, and remind himself this had to be done to prevent that happening to more people, prevent them from being sold into slavery and abused and tortured. To stop them from being hurt in all the ways Danny had once been hurt. It was an effective motivator.

A noise had Steve glancing up. He could just see Danny through the open door. He had been sitting in the livingroom with a newspaper spread out on his lap. Steve was pretty damn sure he hadn’t turned a page in more than half an hour. Now he was on his feet, paper on the floor, standing rigid, breathing hard and unmistakably distressed. He turned and hobbled out the room, out of Steve’s sight, then the bedroom door slammed shut so hard some solid object or other fell off the shelves in the hallway onto the floor with a clatter.

Steve resisted the urge to go after Danny to see if he was okay. It wouldn’t help matters, it would only end in a furious outburst. He opted to give him space no matter how wrong it felt.

Curious as to what might have set him off this time, Steve got up and wandered through towards the livingroom. He paused enroute to pick up the paperweight that was now lying in the middle of the hall carpet, casting a hesitant glance towards the closed bedroom door.

The newspaper was lying just where it had fallen. He looked down and swore under his breath. It was open on a double page spread covering the accident, complete with photos of all of the twenty-three people who had died. He picked it up for a closer look, and double took as he realized the edge of one of the pictures was slightly damp and smudged. Danny’s finger must have been resting there, and for a while at that. It was a picture of a young girl. _Gillian White, aged 12_ , the annotation read. Steve grimaced, because it was tragic, it was nothing but tragic, and it was hardly going to help Danny knowing that kids had been killed in that pile up.

Steve suddenly flashed to the image of a tiny body bag being carried away from under that self-same truck that had crushed the Camaro… and then he was speculating wildly, a sick feeling in his stomach. He had never given any thought to the possibility that Danny might have been aware of those trapped around him- he had been so out of it, it just hadn’t occurred to _anyone_ \- but _now_ Steve was sure as hell thinking about it. He resolved to find out just who it was that had died beside Danny in the second vehicle under the truck.

He laid the paper right back on the ground where he’d found it and went back through to where he’d been working, pulling out his cell to text Chin as he did. It should be a simple matter for his friend and colleague to bring up the accident report which would contain all the details Steve needed.

Sure enough it was only minutes later that he got a reply to his query.

_Second vehicle under truck: Marlene White (35) and Gillian White (12), single mother and daughter, both deceased. Why’d you ask? Danny okay?_

Steve stared down at the names in shock. It was her. The girl Danny’s finger had been resting over for long enough to smudge the ink had died right beside him. It could be a coincidence. Danny couldn’t have seen anyone from where he’d been.

He threw back another text, needing to know more. _Cause of death for both?_

He stared unblinking at his cell until the reply popped up.

 _Mother died on impact, multiple injuries. Daughter suffered a deep laceration to her right thigh and a broken back. She bled out before they got to her._ _Really sad. What’s going on, brah?_

Steve closed his eyes. If the girl had been conscious… if Danny had been more aware early on after the impact…  Danny could have _heard_ her. He could have been _speaking_ to her. He could have been talking to her when she died. Jesus Christ.

He shook himself, bashed out a non-commital reply to Chin and hit ‘send’, mind never deviating from what he thought he might just have found out. Rightly or wrongly, it felt like the first piece of the puzzle had just fallen into place. Steve just wasn’t sure what the hell he was meant to do with it. Danny denied remembering anything about the crash, and Steve still believed him. But this… it could be coincidence, but it could be a damn good indication of what had sent him over the edge.

He wondered for a beat if he should just come out and tell Danny what he suspected, but then dismissed the idea out of hand. Danny was upset enough without having that piled on top of him. If what Steve was now suspecting really had happened, it might come back to Danny in its own time, it might not. He thought of the girl in the picture and shook his head slowly.

Some memories are best left buried.

_DAY FOUR_

Steve jerked awake and sat bolt upright, an inexplicable feeling of black dread wrapped so tight around him he could hardly draw breath. Gasping for air, disoriented, he peered frantically around in the darkness until he finally began to make out the shapes of the furniture in Danny’s livingroom and knew for sure where he was. Safe. He was safe. Danny was safe. Everything was quiet. Slowly he calmed his breathing, regaining control of himself, waiting for the adrenalin to recede.

What the fuck? Had he been dreaming? He didn’t remember. He looked at his watch. It was 2.30 in the morning.

Wide awake now, Steve got to his feet and padded through to the kitchen. He flicked on the light, blinking in the sudden brightness, grabbed a glass from the draining board and turned on the faucet.

Something caught his eye, something that hadn’t been there when he’d been getting ready for bed.

There was a medicine bottle on the counter, a few pills spilled out beside it. He picked it up and read the label. ‘Ambien CR’… sleeping pills. He frowned. Danny hadn’t been given sleeping pills… he looked at the date they’d been prescribed. _Years_ earlier, freaking years. Back when Matty had died, he realized with a shudder.

As he stared at the scattered medication ice cold dread rose, spread down his back, into his veins, into his heart. He stepped forwards, trying to work out how he could possibly tell how many Danny had taken. He wouldn’t… would he? He wouldn’t overdose… but in his current state of mind, Steve really didn’t know what he would do. Steve turned and ran, bursting through Danny’s door with a bang and switching on the light. He froze.

Danny was on top of his bed, splinted arm resting on a pillow. His eyes were shut and he looked white beneath his bruises. For a ghastly moment, it looked like he wasn’t breathing at all.

Heart pounding, Steve launched himself at the bed, grabbed Danny’s shoulder with one hand and pressed his fingers to his neck with the other. The very same instant he felt his partner’s steady pulse, Danny’s face creased into a frown and he moaned softly. Steve let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He was alive at least… but that didn’t mean he hadn’t overdosed.

He bent down, face close to his partner’s, tapping his cheek. “How many did you take, D?!” he said, loud, right by Danny’s ear, in an attempt to rouse him. “Tell me how many you took!”

The frown deepened and Danny moaned again. “Wh-wha? Wha’ssup?” he slurred.

Steve patted him cheek again. “Danny, you’ve got to tell me how many sleeping pills you took! You hear me?!”

Danny swatted his good hand weakly in Steve’s direction, struggling to escape the pull of the drugs. “Two, jus’ two,” he muttered.

“Are you sure?! Danny, are you sure? It’s important!”

Danny’s brow evened out, his arm dropping back down to his side. He was going back under. “Mmm hmm, was two,” he slurred softly.

There was no hint of deception, no hint of guilt, and Steve knew without a doubt what Danny was saying was the truth. The relief was so great that Steve’s legs literally went out from under him. He sat down hard on the floor and sagged back, leaning against the bed, then drew up his knees and lowered his head down to rest on them. “Okay,” he panted, closing his eyes. “Okay. That’s good. Fuck. Shit you gave me a fright, Danny. You sleep. I’ll just… I’ll be right here. _Fuck_.”

For a few moments there was nothing but the sound of breathing- Steve’s still uneven and rushed, Danny’s deep and slow. Then Danny groaned again, but this time was different. This time the sound was sharp and distressed.

Steve turned his head, reaching to lay a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “You okay?”

Danny’s eyes were still closed but his face had crumpled. His breath started to hitch. “Can’t _sleep_ , just keep seeing....” The words tapered off and he sobbed.

The sound brought Steve back up onto the edge of the bed, perched beside Danny’s elbow, hands reaching for his face, thumbs stroking away the _tears_ he found there. “Hey, hey Danny. It’s okay. Tell me buddy, tell me what’s eating you,” Steve whispered, soft and encouraging, heart aching for his partner but at the same time scarcely daring to hope that maybe Danny might finally open up to him in this semi-conscious, drug-addled state.

Danny’s eyes cracked open and found Steve’s. The blank, cold, angry façade that had been a constant presence over the last few days was absent, replaced by the raw pain and fear that Steve had had a brief but terrifying glimpse of in the hospital. “Just keep seeing them… _raping_ … And I couldn’t _do anything._ I couldn’t…” Danny’s voice was wavering, breaking, his face screwing up in pain.

“Easy, easy Danno,” Steve soothed. “You keep seeing what they did to you in Colombia again? Is that what you mean?” And for some reason he hadn’t expected that. The nightmares and flashbacks Danny had once suffered in relation to that phase of his life had been under control for so, so long.

Danny’s eyes screwed shut, squeezing big tears from the corners of his eyes. He shook his head then spoke through gritted teeth. “Not just… _was_ me… but then _her_. Did it to _her_ too. I couldn’t _stop_ them, I couldn’t….”

Steve frowned in confusion, because Danny had never mentioned anyone else being assaulted during his captivity and he was pretty damn sure he had confided in him about everything he could remember. Danny had to be getting confused. He’d maybe been dreaming and was mixing it up with reality. “Okay, easy buddy. Who you talking about, huh? You can tell me. Talk to me.”

Danny didn’t seem to hear. “Why, why would anyone _do_ that?”

Steve shook his head, wishing for what felt like the millionth time that it had been him who had finished the men who had hurt Danny instead of Joe White. Bastards. Utter bastards. “Rape someone? Power, control, spite. I don’t know. Anyone who does that is no better than an animal, Danny.” He sighed. “I’m just so sorry that it happened to you, I would give anything to change that. Anything. You know that, right?”

“Why would anyone… how could anyone…,” Danny broke off and sobbed again, hard, struggling to draw breath before the next one hit.

Steve worried his lip between his teeth. This was so out of character for his partner. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d really broken down and cried since his return from Colombia despite everything he’d been through. He was tough and he’d coped with everything unbelievably well. Whatever the accident had done to him it had really messed with his head, opened a whole can of worms, and it was scary as hell.

Danny seemed to be becoming more and more distraught as they spoke and, for all Steve was desperate for him to share now he was actually _talking_ , right then he needed to try to put an end to his distress. “Okay, easy Danny. That’s enough now. Let’s count, huh? You want to count? Counting’s good. Let’s go to fifteen, just like old times. One, two, three…” Steve coached him quietly.

And the old mantra still worked. Within a few minutes Danny was calm and so quiet Steve thought he was all the way under again. But as soon as Steve stopped whispering numbers to him Danny snorted softly. “I can’t believe I used to think I might like it,” he muttered, voice distant and vague, heavy with sleep.

Steve frowned in confusion. “Like what?”

Danny snorted again. “Being fucked.”

Steve’s eyebrows shot up, because the comment was so left field, so unexpected, he thought he must be hearing things. He sat back, hands sliding down to Danny’s shoulders. “Seriously?! But I thought you were all for the ladies!”

“Mmmmhmm. Just got to wondering ‘bout a guy,” Danny mumbled, then came a short, high-pitched laugh. “But turns out it hurts, it really fucking hurts. So fuck that.”

Steve closed his eyes, murderous thoughts dancing around his mind again. “It’s not meant to hurt, Danny, not if you do it right.” The words slipped out with no thought attached and there was a revelation in there somewhere about Steve’s own dim and distant past. It barely registered, busy as he was reeling at Danny’s own little revelation.

Then the rest of Danny’s words hit him and his mouth went dry. “You were wondering about a guy? Who were you wondering about, Danny?” 

Danny was suddenly still and silent. Sleepy blue eyes forced their way open, filled with confusion and disbelief as though he wasn’t entirely sure if he’d been speaking out loud. Then there was a flicker of fear like he thought he might have let something slip, something he shouldn’t have… and then Steve _knew_. He just knew exactly who Danny had been talking about. Danny had been wondering about _him_. Years ago, way back before Colombia, Danny had been thinking he might like to do it with _him_.

Shell-shocked, he soothed Danny without even thinking about it even as his mind tried to catch up, tried to process. “Shhh, you’re okay, you’re safe. I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere. Just sleep.” It worked- he watched as his partner was slowly pulled back under, as the heavy eyes closed and the breaths evened out for good.

As he stared down at Danny, all the confused feelings Steve had been wrestling with on and off suddenly made complete and utter sense, because what Danny had been thinking about back then? Now the image had been put his head, it sounded pretty damn interesting to him too, like the most obvious thing in the world. In fact, he had to stop his eyes wandering downwards towards Danny’s chest, where the broad muscles were clearly defined beneath the thin material of his shirt because, _Jesus_ that was inappropriate.

Jaw hanging lax, he shook his head slowly, wondering at his own lack of self-awareness. No wonder he’d been uncomfortable with the concept of Danny dating again. He wasn’t just being protective. He was _jealous_. Jesus, he really was! He was jealous! If only Danny had approached him back then, if only he’d taken a chance during one of their long, lazy, beer-filled evenings full of laughter and teasing…. Surely if Danny had taken that leap of faith Steve’s brain would have gotten with the program for all the interest hadn’t solidified in his mind back then. But, for whatever reason, Danny never had.

Steve shook his head, wondering at what might have been. Could they have messed about, experimented together, had their fun and then gone back to working side by side like nothing had happened?

And then the revelations just kept on coming, because Steve realized with no small measure of shock that, for him at any rate, even if that might have been possible back then, it sure wouldn’t be now. He had known for years that he loved Danny, but now it struck him that there was really just no room in his life for anyone else in his life. No, somewhere along the way, he had fallen for his partner and he hadn’t even realized it.

But now… all this dawning realization was for nothing. Danny wasn’t interested in him anymore. Danny wasn’t interested in _anyone_ anymore. He was so far from being capable of being in a physical relationship with anyone again, let alone a man, it wasn’t even funny. He was just too vulnerable, he’d been hurt too badly, both physically and mentally. And that had been the case _before_ the accident. Now, he was nothing short of a total mess.

A wave of sadness and loss and despair crashed over Steve as the implications fell into place. They’d been robbed of the opportunity to even _try_ to see if they might work out as more than just friends. Any chance they might have had was long gone.

As he gazed at Danny’s face, finally peaceful in slumber, he smiled ruefully.  "Some timing we got, huh, partner?" he choked out past the lump that had materialised in his throat.

He reached a hesitant hand to ghost over Danny's hair.  "I wish you would have said something,” he murmured softly, “I wish I would have known. If had known you were wondering about it… _fuck_. I would have helped you explore that. And I wouldn't have hurt you, babe. Never. I would have shown you how to do it right."  He shook his head sadly, his eyes burning now, his vision blurring because it just felt so _unfair_.  "Maybe we could have been good together, Danny, you and me. Maybe we could have had it all."

_DAY FIVE_

Things went on as though that night had never happened and Steve was pretty sure that, between the drugs, exhaustion, pain and stress, Danny simply didn’t remember any of the surreal conversation at all. He wasn’t sure whether to be happy or sad about that, but it certainly kept things less awkward than they could have become.

What certainly _was_ a bad thing was the fact the brief flicker of open vulnerability Danny had shown had been extinguished in dramatic style. The cold, hard, angry stranger was back with a vengeance, pacing the apartment then hiding away, snapping and snarling then zoning out, staring at nothing at all. There were more holes in the plasterboard of Danny’s bedroom wall where his good fist, now bruised and swollen, had gone clean through. There were smashed glasses, broken pictures. It was going downhill and fast, all freaking classic, textbook PTSD and Danny just wouldn’t accept it, wouldn’t talk to him, wouldn’t agree to go see his doctor or his psychiatrist or any other psychiatrist for that matter. He didn’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone, do anything. He just wanted to hide in his room and be left alone, that was _it_.

Feeling exhausted and beaten and for once in his life being entirely unsure what to do for the best, Steve sat at the kitchen table and stared at his image of that poor woman, and wondered absently if he was just as incapable of helping Danny as he was of helping her.

His partner needed help. He needed medication and counselling and support… but what was Steve meant to do?! He could pull strings, get Danny admitted to a psychiatric ward… but Danny would probably never forgive him and that possibility was one hell of a bitter pill to swallow, especially now he had finally come to realize exactly how much the blond man meant to him. For all he would no doubt eventually come to terms with the fact they could never be more than friends, Steve could _not_ accept the prospect of losing Danny from his life altogether.

But he wasn’t naïve. With the way things were going he knew the point might come when his hands would be tied. He might have no choice. He sagged back in his chair and closed his eyes, rubbing at his face with the palm of his hand.

A soft foot fall behind him made him jump and turn sharply.

“Danny!” he exclaimed, “I thought you were in your room.” He glanced up at Danny’s face and did a double take as he read the expression on his partner’s face and realized the monumental mistake he had just made.

Danny’s eyes were wide with horror, his gaze fixed on the picture on the laptop, on that _fucking_ picture and Steve had never even _thought_. Danny shouldn’t have been affected by it any more than Steve was. He was a _cop_ , he’d dealt with all the horrors any other cop would since he’d started back at work and he’d never flinched. And it _wouldn’t_ have affected him like this two weeks earlier, but now….

Steve slammed the laptop shut, but it was too late, the damage had been done. Danny wasn’t there anymore, he was somewhere else, somewhere horrific, sucked back in time by a flashback so intense it took Steve’s breath away to watch it.

He staggered backwards, away from Steve, or away from whatever he was now seeing, until his back hit the wall. He was yelling as he went, shouting out, _begging_ , voice desperate and broken. “No! Please! Stop, leave her, _please_! I’m _sorry_!”

Steve had been here before, he’d handled Danny’s flashbacks before and he knew well what generally worked with him, what could begin to break the spell, start to bring him out of it. He kept his head for all his heart was pounding and approached Danny carefully, stopping close to him but not too close.

“Danny,” he said, loud and forcibly calm, trying to catch his eye, trying to draw him back to the present. “Danny you’re having a flashback. You hear me? It’s a just flashback. Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real. That was then. It’s over now. It’s finished. You’re safe. You’re in your new apartment. We’re in the kitchen. It’s nearly lunchtime. I’m with you and you’re safe.”

It wasn’t working. Danny’s breathing was labored, his pupils dilated, there was sweat running down his face. He was shaking his head from side to side, face screwing up in pain as he watched an invisible scene unfold before him.

Steve took a cautious step closer. “Okay buddy, I’m gonna reach out now and touch your arm. It’s me, it’s Steve. You’re safe.” Steve did just that, slowly and carefully, one hand raised ready to block if Danny reacted violently in his blind panic.

It wasn’t enough.

The moment Steve’s fingers brushed his arm, Danny went crazy. He flailed wildly, shouting in distress, pushing out and clawing, then grabbing at Steve’s shirt and yanking it. Steve backed away from him fast, hands raised in surrender. “Easy, Danny! Stop! Whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real!”

But now Danny’s eyes were fixed on _him_ and he was coming right at him! Steve moved forwards to meet him _fast_ , intending to wrap his arms right around his partner, to restrain him until he calmed down before he hurt either one of them, but at the last moment he balked at the thought of putting pressure on that severely damaged arm.

That instant of hesitation cost him.

Danny’s good hand shot upwards without warning and this time his fingers were curled into a fist. The solid blow struck Steve on the temple and he crashed to the ground, seeing stars and gulping for breath, the copper tang of his own blood thick in his mouth.

He pushed away the pain instantly, hauled himself up onto his knees, blinking frantically to clear his vision. Blood gushed down his chin, he’d bitten through his lip and his tongue. He peered around blearily, trying to focus, to find his partner.

Danny was there, now on the other side of the kitchen, still somewhere else altogether in his mind, eyes wide as he rode the wave of terror, as if he were fighting for his life. He flinched back from something only he could see, then staggered sideways and punched out wildly, this time hitting the glass-panelled kitchen door. The pane his fist impacted on shattered in into a million pieces and then Danny’s blood was dripping steadily on to the floor too, marking out the erratic course of his movements in crimson.

That was enough. Hurting Steve was one thing, damaging himself was another and Steve had to end it. Blanking out his own pain, Steve ran up behind the blond man and wrapped his long arms right around him in a bear-hug, no hesitation this time. He pinned both arms to Danny’s sides, splint and all.

Crying out in pain, Danny struggled furiously and they both clattered hard to the ground, but Steve wasn’t letting go, no way was he letting go. “Danny, stop!” he hissed out between gritted teeth, his mouth against Danny’s ear. He turned his head to spit blood, then tried again. “Please! You’re safe. It’s over. You’re safe. Stop!”

Then all he could do was hold on, just keep his body and his arms exactly where they were, wrapped tight around his partner, and hold on as Danny thrashed and yelled, until finally, finally, he sagged down, exhausted, sobbing for breath and shaking hard.

By that time, Steve’s arms felt like jello and spikes of pain from his pounding head were shooting clear through his body. He screwed his eyes up, eased his grip just a touch.

Danny instantly yanked away and lurched back to his feet.

Cursing under his breath, Steve followed him, trying to muster the strength and co-ordination to go another round… but the madness was over.

Danny stared at Steve, eyes aware again and wide with shock, mouth agape. There was no fury, no blank terror… and no walls in their place. His frantic blue eyes traced the blood running down Steve’s chin, seeing it for the first time but seemingly realizing right away what he had just done. He raised a hand as if to go to his partner, but stopped, backing away a few steps before he turned and ran from the room.

Steve took a drunken step forwards and he meant to go after him, he really did, but his ears were ringing and he could hear his own heart pounding, adrenaline bouncing through his veins. He suddenly felt horribly dizzy and he turned and grabbed at the edge of the counter to keep himself upright. For a few long seconds everything got a bit unclear.

When he could focus again, he was still in the kitchen, but somewhere along the way he had moved. He was standing in front of that damned cupboard of kids’ treats. It was open and the bottle of whiskey was out of the box and on the counter in front of him.

He stood, staring at it, breathing hard, trying to understand what the hell was going on.

A soft touch on his shoulder had him whirling round, fist raised as a reflex.

Danny, it was Danny, his watery gaze devastated and filled with shame. His eyes flicked down, catching sight of the bottle behind Steve and his expression of horror made it clear that he well understood what he’d nearly caused Steve to do.

That one fist, bruised and bloodied, reached up to the front of Steve’s shirt and gripped tight. The hand was trembling, his body was trembling, his teeth were chattering with the shock of everything that had just gone down.

“Jesus Steve, don’t, please,” he sobbed, “Don’t drink. I’m so sorry, I’m so _sorry_.”

Steve stared down at him, still in shock himself, head still reeling. Fighting dizziness, he made a move to grip Danny’s shoulder but aborted at the last moment, so fucking confused and unsure of what he was meant to say or do. His head felt like it was filled with cotton wool.

But his partner’s blue eyes were finally fixed on his, his barriers gone, his pain finally on open show.  “What the hell is wrong with me, what’s happening to me?” Danny gasped, barely audible.

Steve took a wavering step closer to him, swiping at the blood dripping from his chin with the back of his hand. He gripped each of Danny’s broad shoulders tight. “Danny, you need help, you need to talk about whatever is going on with you. You can’t live like this. _I_ can’t live like this. It has to stop, you hear me?” He could hear the desperation in his own voice.

Danny’s head dropped down and Steve’s right hand shot up to grab his chin, tilt it back up to make his partner keep right on looking at him. He didn’t want to lose that connection now.

Steve shook his head slowly. “Danny, I’m sorry, but I’ve had enough, you hear me?” His grip on his emotions was so tenuous that his voice was wavering and breaking on just about every freaking word, the lump in his throat threatening his ability to speak at all. “I- I can’t keep doing this. You speak to me right now or I’m… I’ll have to go. _Please_.”

And then Danny was clutching the material of his shirt even tighter, his face screwing up. Tears began to track down his cheeks. “I-I _can’t_ ,” he choked out.

Steve shook his head slowly, handsome features taut with distress because that was _not_ the answer he needed. “Why? Fuck me, Danny since when couldn’t you talk to _me_? Did I do something wrong?” A hot tear ran down Steve’s cheek too and he swiped at it angrily.

Danny shook his head emphatically and then the words were tumbling tearfully from his mouth, running together. “No, no, please don’t think that, it’s not you, it’s… it’s just too much, it’s _too much_. I-I thought I could handle it, I thought I just needed a little time to process… but I can’t, I can’t do it, I don’t even know how to _start_ ….”

Steve took a moment, breathing hard, trying to gather his thoughts through the mire of pain and upset. “OK, can I guess? Will you let me do that?” he kept on going, not even waiting for a response. “Did something happen while you trapped? Something bad that’s brought things back? Is that it?”

Danny shrugged helplessly. “I… don’t _know_ … but in there… it came back! It’s too much!”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean, babe?” Steve frowned, totally confused.

“I remembered.” Danny’s eyes implored that Steve just _understand_ as words were clearly failing him.

There was a delay as Steve waited for Danny to finish the sentence, then he realized he _was_ finished. Danny remembered. He couldn’t mean… could he? _“What?_ Wait, you remembered what?”

“ _Everything_ ,” Danny reiterated helplessly.

“You mean about the accident?” Steve hazarded.

But Danny was shaking his head emphatically. “I _don’t_ remember that. That’s just… bits and pieces, _no_!”

“You don’t mean… from before?” Steve sounded incredulous, he _was_ incredulous, because that couldn’t be right, Danny’s memories couldn’t have come back, not after all this time, not like this. Could they?

But Danny nodded silently. He opened his mouth, lips moving as he searched for the right words. “I can’t manage… it’s too much,” he choked out.

Steve’s hand dropped down from Danny’s chin as he stared at the blond man in shocked disbelief. Free to move again, Danny’s head slumped forwards, eyes closing tight. Steve pulled him in, pulled his partner’s head against his chest as he tried to absorb the magnitude of what Danny had just said.

 _Everything._ And finally understanding dawned, because no wonder Danny was so fucked up. It wasn’t the accident, as if that wouldn’t have been bad enough. If Danny had remembered his life before… in part that was a good thing, in part that was wonderful, _incredible_ … but it also meant coming to terms once more with every detail of what had been a life peppered with tragedy, it meant knowing every detail of his ordeal in Colombia, every detail of the hell he was put through. He had been missing so much of that before, and that had always been a blessing. He had never remembered much of what came before the point where his tormentors had pushed him so far his mind had shut down.

Steve shuddered at a sudden thought- did he remember that now too? Jesus. That could explain a lot.

Danny’s harsh breathing was painful to hear. “S-Steve… I- I think I need _help_ ,” he stuttered, and right then those were the sweetest words Steve could ever remember hearing.

Smiling a watery smile, he pulled Danny’s shaking form tighter against his own body, wrapping his arms tight around him, then ducked down and pressed a firm kiss to the top of the blond head. “Yeah you do, buddy. You really do. It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’ll get you help. It’s gonna be okay now. I’ve got you, I’m here.”

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you thought (she typed nervously).


	8. Lowest ebb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone leaving comments and kudos. Makes me smile lots. 
> 
> Here's another chapter I could likely have fiddled with forever and not been quite happy with. Thanks to IC and KQ for checking it over for me, you girls are the best :) All mistakes are my own.

Danny perched on the edge of the tub, good arm supporting his splint, clad in nothing but his underwear, a picture of utter misery. Occasional shivers wracked his body for all it was perfectly warm in his bathroom.

He was so screwed. He still hurt from head to foot, the bone-deep pain in his arm escalating to unadulterated agony without warning at regular intervals in spite of the drugs. But the pain in his right fist eclipsed everything right then because of what it signified. He had _punched_ _Steve._

His face twisted in distress as his mind kindly supplied him with an image from the previous night. A glimpse of the shock and confusion, the _hurt_ , that had been written across his partner’s handsome features as he’d staggered back to his feet, blood running down his chin. And the damage Danny had done had gone so much deeper. _Steve had been about to drink._ He had never weakened in that respect before, he’d not touched a drop since Colombia, but last night … it had been close. Danny’s behavior had dragged Steve down that far. After everything they had gone through together, for Danny to be the one to drive him back to drink? That was unforgivable.

Mired in self-loathing Danny watched, mute, as Steve moved around the bathroom, fishing toiletries from the cabinet, then more from a grocery bag that had appeared in the early hours of the morning, dropped off by Chin. Danny had recognised his low voice and waited tensely for a visit that had never materialised. Steve was fielding his visitors, keeping it to a manageable zero.

Everything was so fucked up. Danny felt like he was trapped in a nightmare. When he had come round, cowering at the back of his hospital room, convinced he was still in Colombia, he had held onto Steve desperately, just trying to understand what the hell was going on. Then _everything_ had hit him- a can of worms exploding in all directions. Information overload, too much pain, too much horror and suffering. Just too much, period.

Somehow his brain had stepped in and saved him from total meltdown. It had gone into overdrive, taken over, shut down his emotions and tossed them behind the wall he’d carefully constructed over time for things that were just too hard to deal with. It might have saved his sanity short term, but it had left him stuck in a slow-motion breakdown with nowhere to go.

His own mind, his thoughts and feelings, were out of control, running amok. Overcome with insurmountable rage one minute, hiding silent tears the next, the way he was acting was inexplicable to him but he just didn’t seem able to do a damn thing about it.

The black memories in his head, once fleeting and incomplete, were now crystal clear and nauseating in their detail. The horrors he had seen, the guilt he carried, the abuse he had suffered- they just kept pushing their way to the forefront of his mind no matter how hard he tried to force them back. Nightmares and flashbacks and persistent nagging images wouldn’t leave him alone. The brown eyes of that dying woman, they haunted him. How could he have forgotten her, how could he have shut out what had happened to her just because she tried to help him? Guilt was weighing him down, choking him. He couldn’t cope with any of it, nothing.

Steve was right, of course, it _was_ PTSD. Textbook in fact, even more so than last time. But from the moment he had come round in the hospital a twisted logic had taken over. It was the one clear train of thought he had been able to muster when he had very quickly realized his mental health had floundered yet again- he couldn’t let himself go back to what he had been. He couldn’t let himself be that pathetic, child-like figure, clinging helplessly to Steve. He wasn’t supposed to be dependent on him anymore. He was meant to be fixed. Tough. A worthy partner. He shouldn’t need Steve hovering over him yet again like he was a pathetic failure, like he couldn’t handle life without being propped up over and over and over again. He wanted Steve’s love and respect, not his pity.

So he’d pushed everyone away, _hard,_ wanting nothing more than to slink off into a corner alone like a wounded animal, hiding his weakness and tending his own injuries. He’d _tried_ to push everyone away at least- Steve was a stubborn bastard.

He’d convinced himself he could cope with the influx of memories alone, without everyone needing to know just how truly weak and pathetic he was. He knew what had worked last time. He’d been walked through the healing process, led for the most part by Dr Finnegan, following meekly with Steve holding his hand. Deal with one tiny bit at a time- that was the key. Use exercises to stay calm so he could dip in and out of the twisted events his life had led him through without being overwhelmed. Re-learn the base fact that these things were _over_. They weren’t _now_. They shouldn’t rule his life anymore, scare him, upset him.

Danny could remember just how he had made progress before. He had genuinely thought he knew enough to do that alone this time around.

If only it was as easy as that. For all he’d shut himself away in his bedroom and freaking _tried_ …  he’d failed miserably, fucked up monumentally. He just couldn’t stay calm, couldn’t settle, couldn’t control his train of thought. He’d had his chance to sort himself out and he’d failed spectacularly. His only achievements? He had driven everyone away. He had punched Steve. He didn’t remember it but that made no difference. He knew it had happened. He had _punched Steve_. And why had he kept that bottle of whiskey in the house when his best friend was an alcoholic? So, so short-sighted, so _stupid_!

He was left with no choice but to give in, to let himself be that helpless figure he despised so much all over again. It was hard. Really hard.

What he really wanted to do was grab that whiskey, hide in a corner and drink himself into a stupor. He wanted to pop pills until the pain inside went away. He wanted to slit his wrists, watch his troubles run down the drain. He wished he’d _died_ in the freaking crash, it would all have been so much simpler. He just wanted it all to end. But he couldn’t because he was scared of that as well. What would Gracie and Charlie and Steve think of him if he took the coward’s way out?

 _Grace_. Recollection hit him and closed his eyes, remembering the latest text his daughter had sent him word for word.

_Uncle Steve says you’re still not feeling well and you’re sleeping a lot. PLEASE can we come and see you? We miss you. I promise we’ll be quiet if you want to sleep. Love you Danno xxxxxx_

Steve was covering for him, that was obvious. He was useless, worse than useless. Useless father, useless friend. His kids would be better off without him. They had Rachel and Stan, they didn’t need him. But Steve…  would he drink again? Or was Danny being here the one thing that would drive him to drink? It sure seemed it.

He’d _hit Steve_.

He bit down on his lip, harder and harder until the metallic tang of blood burst onto his tongue. He felt the tickle of a fat, red droplet as it ran down his chin.

“Hey.” The softness in Steve’s voice tore at Danny’s soul and he cracked his eyes open to his partner crouched right in front of him, eyes filled with concern, bruised temple and puffy lip serving to highlight Danny’s latest sins. And yet Steve had forgiven him, instantly. Not one iota of resentment remained. It only made Danny feel _worse_.

Steve reached towards him carefully now, as though Danny were a skittish horse. He cupped his jaw, swiping the blood away with the pad of his thumb.

“Don’t,” Steve said, quiet but firm. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

Danny closed his eyes again, leaning into Steve’s hand. He had a sudden urge to hide in his partner’s embrace, safe from the world, let him chase the nightmares away. But that stupid notion that had cemented itself in his mind was holding him back and he just couldn’t get past it. _Dependent. Pathetic._ He lifted his head, turned it away, licking a second drop of blood from his lip before it could fall.

Steve stayed where he was for a second before curling his open hand into a loose fist. He stood up and turned away brusquely, busying himself with something or other. “C’mon, you need to clean up a bit before you see the shrink,” he threw back over his shoulder. “You do what you can and I’ll finish off.” He stepped aside, revealing a sink full of warm, soapy water and a sponge. Danny wasn’t allowed to shower, not until the splint came off in a few days’ time. This was the next best thing.

Danny looked around dully, trying to convince himself to move. The mirror caught his eye and he drew a sharp breath when he saw the stranger who stared back at him. Scruffy and unshaven, face white beneath the bruises and tight with grief, blue eyes haunted and fearful. He squeezed them shut, fast, hating everything he saw.

“Okay. It’s okay. I’ll do it. It’s not a big deal. My stupid idea, right?” he heard Steve say a few moments later, then a warm, wet sponge started to clean him, firm but gentle and so, so tender over the scabbed cuts and yellowing bruises. It ran over his face, his neck, his back, his chest.

Danny kept his eyes shut, trying to zone out. They’d been here so many times before. It had been fine, a normal daily routine when he’d been so physically weak he was incapable of taking care of himself. Not now. Now his face began to burn hot with shame. But still Danny let it happen, let Steve help him, let him pick up the slack like he always did.

Pathetic. He was pathetic.

Steve carried on without comment, keeping things business-like and impersonal. Professional. He was plainly treading carefully, striving to avoid doing anything that could set Danny off. A tension in his normally fluid movements was the only visible sign that he was stressed as hell too.

With Danny now cleaner than he had been, Steve laid a warm towel around his shoulders and then began to shave him, one hand against his skin, holding him steady, the other steadily working the razor to remove the days of growth. Danny felt his partner’s warm breath against his face as the other man concentrated fully on his task, so careful not to hurt him. Steve would _never_ hurt him.

The situation, shame, guilt, it was all too much and a tear leaked from the corner of Danny’s eye. Steve never said a word, just brushed it away with the side of his hand then kept right on going.

Danny was at rock bottom. This unquestioning support, this unconditional love that Steve was giving him right here, right now… it was everything he desperately needed but everything he couldn’t let himself have. For all they were inches apart, for all Steve’s hands were on him, Danny could feel the gulf between them that _he’d_ created and _he_ couldn’t get past. Admitting he needed help was one thing, but letting Steve be the one to carry him? Apparently that was something else altogether.

He still loved Steve, that hadn’t changed. That was the problem in fact- that was what made the man’s opinion matter so much. After everything they had been through, their bond was so intense, so unique, Danny knew without a shadow of a doubt he would never feel closer to anyone than he did to his partner. He’d never love anyone more, aside from his kids of course, but that was so, so different.

And he’d heard what Steve had said days earlier when Danny’s mind had been thick with drug-induced sleep, when he’d finally relaxed with Steve by his side and let himself drift. Steve would’ve been interested in him once upon a time. Steve thought maybe they would’ve been good together. It was pretty incredible, totally unexpected, even if it didn’t really feel like Steve had been talking about _him_. He was talking about the _old_ Danny, the _dead_ Danny.

Danny’s recollection of his own interest in Steve had been lost along with almost all of his other memories of his life on Oahu before he was taken. Now it was back with everything else. It had been little more than a day-dream at the time, nothing concrete. An idle thought he never would have acted on in a million years because of… what? He thought of the way he used to be in search of an answer. Masculine pride? Something like that. He wished he had been braver. More open-minded. Maybe they really _could_ have had everything.

It could never happen now.

He simply wasn’t capable of being in a physical relationship. Just the thought of a heated touch, the smells, the sounds that went along with sex… for him they were interminably linked with pain and humiliation. The very thought of being in that situation with anyone again, male or female, was terrifying. Maybe that was why that particular interest he’d once had in Steve had never returned of its own accord. 

It was irrelevant. Steve didn’t want him like that anymore. He had used the _past tense_. No wonder. Danny was different now. Pathetic. Broken. Scarred. Dirty and used. Weak. No one would want him, no one who _knew_ , no one who saw all the damage he kept hidden beneath his clothes. He was to be pitied, not lusted over. He didn’t know how Steve could stand to touch him at all, knowing the things that had been done to him.

He was breathing harder, he realized, stress mounting as he merely touched the edges of the subject in his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, started to count quietly into himself, one to fifteen, one to fifteen. He kept his lips still. Steve didn’t have to know just how close to the edge he was yet again.

But Steve must have clocked his rising distress straight away. His hands froze, pausing in their ministrations. “You still with me?” he said anxiously.

 With a monumental effort Danny steadied himself. Stopped the spiral before it started. “Yeah,” he said, real quiet. He opened his eyes, looked at the man he had let down left, right and center. “M’sorry,” he breathed. “Really sorry.”

“For what?” Steve’s eyes bored into his, confused.

Danny dropped his gaze, stared at his own bare feet, toes curling and uncurling. “Just… everything.”

The hands moved away from his face, one shifting to grasp his shoulder. It gave him a little shake. “Hey. Stop. You’ve nothing to apologise for. None of this is down to you and you’re doing the right thing now. You good?”

A short, high-pitched laugh was all Danny could produce as an answer, which was pretty ironic. He was so far from good it wasn’t even funny.

Sighing deeply, Steve laid down the razor. He sank down beside Danny, sitting on the edge of the tub and slung a strong arm across the smaller man’s shoulders. “Listen. I know you feel like things couldn’t get much worse. You’ve had a tough life and that’s the part that’s got a hold of you right now… but it’s always been full of love too. Your family. Your kids. The team. Me. Try to hang on to that, okay? You’re getting the good back alongside the bad. It’s just gonna take a while to get it all under control and in perspective that’s all. We’ll get there. I’m here for you, no matter what.”

Danny listened to Steve’s voice, so calm and deep and reassuring and God, he hoped he was right. He just wanted to be back where he had gotten to. That was all. Now he’d admitted he was struggling, he’d get drugs at least. Paroxetine- that had helped before. He’d been on it for over a year last time. Yeah… maybe that would help. God, he hoped it would.

Steve patted his back then stood up again, lifting the razor and rinsing it out in the sink. “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s finish up and find you some clean clothes. It’s nearly time to go. Hey, you want me to come in with you like I did at the start before?”

Danny blinked absently, remembering the early therapy sessions with Dr Finnegan. He and Steve, sitting together, Steve rubbing his thumb and counting with him, lending him strength, anchoring him when things got rough. It had more than helped, it had made progress possible to begin with.

In that moment he wanted to give in, he wanted to let Steve be everything he had been the last time to Danny. But that damn barrier was still there in his mind, solid and immovable. He just couldn’t. He shook his head, stomach clenching in case Steve reacted badly to the overt rejection. He just couldn’t even begin to explain why he was being such a dick to the man who meant most to him in the whole world.

But Steve had always been smart. “It’s okay. I get it… I think anyway,” he said thoughtfully. “You’ve always been a stubborn son-of-a-bitch. You were feeling pretty good before the accident and now… well, you’re needing help again. I guess it feels like you’ve fallen a pretty long way. That’s gonna mess with your head on top of everything else you’ve got to deal with. Is that it?”

Danny looked up, stared at him in surprise. It was like Steve was reading his mind again, and how did he even _do_ that?

Steve smiled softly at him like he’d spoken out loud. “I know you,” he said.

Danny stared at him, then smiled back sadly across the gulf between them, the gulf Steve was trying his hardest to bridge… but no matter how much he wanted to allow it, Danny just couldn’t let him. “Yeah. I remember,” he breathed.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know what you thought!


	9. Adrift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to KQ, IC and AG. Without you guys this chapter would not have happened.
> 
> I'm no professional in these areas but I spent a whole lot of time over the last few months researching PTSD case studies for reasons unrelated to FF, whilst quietly thinking to myself about Danny after Fifteen (you know how it is)... so hoping for an element of realism here. Fingers crossed! 
> 
> Mistakes are clearly my own.

_WAITING_

Steve sat in the waiting room at the psychiatrist’s office, flicking through a magazine which could have been freaking upside down for all the attention he was paying it. He crossed and uncrossed his legs for the hundredth time, then planted both feet solidly on the ground, ran a hand down his face. He was nervous as hell and hiding it badly. It was so not him.

Self-conscious, he glanced up surreptitiously, thankful that there were only a handful of other people waiting, all of them strangers and none of them paying him one iota of attention. They all had their own problems he supposed.

He put down the magazine, abandoning the pretence, and scanned the familiar surroundings. It was a fancy place, all glass and clean lines and beautiful receptionists with perfect smiles. He had had to use all the considerable influence he had to get Danny in here all those months ago when he had been discharged from the psychiatric unit at Tripler. It was the best place on the island, attracting some of the top names in psychiatry from mainland US. Dr Finnegan had been fantastic, so good for Danny. It was a damn shame he’d left. Retired, apparently, or Steve would have been flying him back to the island whether the guy wanted to come or not. He’d performed miracles really, helping Danny transform from the shell of a man he had been back to someone capable of being a cop.

It looked like they needed a miracle all over again.

He checked his watch. Ten minutes. Danny had only been in with Dr Miller for ten minutes. It felt like a day. Steve glanced back over his left shoulder at the closed door beside him, straining his ears. He huffed in frustration. He couldn’t hear a thing. Of course he couldn’t hear a thing- it was a freaking psychiatrist’s office. Privacy and confidentiality clearly necessitated an element of sound-proofing.

Danny had hesitated before he stepped through that door. He’d glanced back at Steve, the vulnerability on his face painful to see. For a moment Steve had thought he was going to back down, ask him to come in too. But then he’d turned away and hobbled into Miller’s office, shoulders hunched, looking for all the world like he was going to face a firing squad. The door had closed firmly behind him.

Steve hated this. It felt fundamentally wrong. He should be in there by Danny’s side where he belonged, ready to help him out or support him or tell Miller to back off. Or to stop Danny from punching the psychiatrist, of course. That would be bad too. Very bad in fact, and not beyond the realms of possibility in the circumstances.

He pressed a self-conscious hand to his bruised temple.

But Danny had been adamant. He wanted to do it alone and Steve had to respect that, no matter how much it was tearing him up inside.

 

_FIRST SESSION_

Danny stared blankly at Dr Miller as the guy spoke to him in low, soothing tones about… something. He was trying to listen, it just wasn’t quite happening for some reason. It felt like he was watching TV, not like he was actually in a real situation where he was expected to contribute and interact.

He was downright scared if he was honest with himself. He was gonna get committed, he could feel it. Miller was gonna tell him he needed to be hospitalized, then Steve was gonna make it happen one way or another. He didn’t want that. The mere thought of being back in the psychiatric unit where he had been an in-patient when he first returned to Oahu from Colombia, being back where he had started _physically,_ as well as in terms of mental weakness… that was far too much. Danny could feel panic churning in his gut at the very idea.

He had to try to stay calm, had to try to answer the guy’s questions like a normal human being, just get through it, get his drugs. If he had a flashback or freaked out and yelled at the guy…. God, he was screwed, he was so screwed.

His early sessions with the nice psychiatrist at Tripler... Anna? Or Amy? Something like that, anyway… then when he’d started with Finnegan… they hadn’t felt like this. But he’d had advantages then, for all he had been a complete basket-case. He had already been nicely drugged _way_ before therapy began, the levels of medication in his system high and effective. And he’d had Steve by his side, literally holding his hand, rubbing the scars on his thumb, ready to count with him if it started to get too hard.

Not now. The painkillers weren’t exactly gonna do much to protect him from this and they were all he had. He felt raw and exposed. He was quaking inside, in danger of blowing up or melting down- it could go either way. He knew Miller was gonna ask him things, want to know things about Danny’s newly emerged memories that he just wasn’t able to talk about, not yet, no way, no _way_. He was spending his whole time trying not to _think_ about them, just trying to stay freaking calm, trying not to let his mind take over, take him to the bad places, make him do things he simply couldn’t control.

Danny wasn’t ready for this. Nowhere near.

 _But he’d hit Steve_. Eyes filling, he made himself look Miller right in the eye, face his fate. He deserved it, whatever it was.

Miller was regarding him in thoughtful silence. It slowly dawned on Danny that the psychiatrist must have asked a question that he hadn’t even registered. His heart started pounding. He looked at the man helplessly, like a deer caught in headlights, frantically trying to guess what it might have been.

Dr Miller’s expression was open and friendly… and his sharp eyes were appraisive, plainly intent on logging every tiny little detail of his behavior.

Danny’s good hand gripped the edge of his seat. His gaze shifted down to it and he realized it was trembling visibly. He shifted it, fast, crossed it over the front of his body and tucked it behind his sling. “S-sorry?” he choked out. He was screwed. He was so utterly screwed.

But Miller just smiled a kind little smile. “You’re feeling pretty tense, huh?”

Danny nodded reluctantly, the admission prompting one traitorous tear to spill out. It burned a hot trail down his cheek. His bottom lip started to shake and he pressed his teeth into it, feeling the sting as he touched the damage he’d caused earlier.

“It’s okay,” said Miller. “You’re safe. There’s no pressure here. Commander McGarrett filled me in on what happened- the accident, your memory, how things have been for you since. You don’t have to say a single thing you don’t feel ready to say. I just want to see what I can do to try to help you, that’s all.”

Danny looked up again, doubtful. It felt like a trick, like Miller was drawing him out, waiting for him to slip up. He wondered desperately how much Steve had told him, wished he’d bothered to ask at some stage... it was too late now. He shuddered.

Dr Miller laid his notebook down on the desk beside him. “Danny…,” he said softly. “What can I do to help you right now?”

Danny stared dumbly at him, scared to take the straightforward question at face value. But he had to risk it. He had to answer this. And he actually _had_ an answer for this. “I-I was thinking p-paroxetine might help,” he croaked out, barely recognising his own thready voice. “Maybe... if you could, you know… prescribe some? Please?” He cleared his throat, now verging on terrified because he’d pretty much laid his cards on the table. He wanted drugs, he needed drugs… he was sick, he’d lost the plot. He was so gonna get locked up.

“Yes,” said Dr Miller with a decisive nod. “I think that would be a good idea…”

Shock at the ease with which Miller had agreed with him prompted those unpredictable tears to start welling again and Danny shook his head against them. He’d expected… he didn’t know what. He’d expected to have to put his innermost thoughts out on display to earn the drugs, he supposed. The unexpected relief he felt now... then he realized with a jolt that Miller had started talking again and his stomach clenched. There was more. Maybe it wasn’t going to be that easy after all.

“… but I would appreciate it if you could talk to me just a little so we can decide what to do next. Medication can help to alleviate your symptoms but drugs alone won’t move you on from this. I’m sure you know that with your history. We _will_ need to talk about what route you want to take with therapy and what you hope to achieve... but that can wait. I see it’s hard for you to speak right now, I see you’re very emotional. I would like for you to do some exercises with me just now to help you feel calmer and I’d like for you to keep doing them at home as often as you can.  Before we do that, I just have a couple of very important questions to ask you. Will you try to answer for me, Danny? Simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers will be fine.”

Danny nodded slowly, hesitantly, scarcely daring to hope that that really was all that was expected of him. Maybe he could get through this dreaded appointment after all without flipping his shit all over Miller’s office.

“Have you experienced any flashbacks? Nightmares?”

He nodded again, jaw now clamped shut and guts churning as he waited to see where Miller was heading with this.

Dr Miller lifted his notebook and scribbled something down, then fixed him with a kindly but intent look. “Suicidal thoughts?” he asked, voice low but matter-of-fact.

Danny felt his face redden, felt like the truth was written across his forehead. “No,” he croaked, so glad Steve was out in the waiting room because he would have heard the lie in the answer for sure and if Miller thought he was a danger to himself, or anyone else for that matter, there would only be one place he was going.

Maybe Miller had his suspicions anyway. “Do you feel you should be admitted to the psychiatric unit that worked with you before?” the psychiatrist said, tone calm and non-judgemental. “I’m happy to refer you if you feel you’re struggling.”

“No!!” Danny snapped, because his worst-case scenario was being dangled in front of him and… no. _Shit_ , he had to try to keep it together. He was clearly setting off alarm bells with his freakish behavior… or maybe the alarm bells had already been set off by Steve. Maybe his partner knew exactly how low he was feeling.  

“I just…,” he took a breath again because at this rate he’d end up there whether he wanted to or not. “I- I’m fine. Just some drugs to make me feel c-calmer. The paroxetine… that helped before. Please.”

Danny watched for a moment as Miller made some more notes, then he screwed his eyes shut, so painfully ashamed of his weaknesses he wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole.

“Danny?” Miller’s voice had him blinking his bleary eyes back open. He felt so tired all of a sudden. He’d had enough, he wanted to curl up in a corner and disappear.

“Let’s see if we can get you feeling a little calmer. You say you’ve been having problems staying calm. I know you tried a variety of techniques before. Can I ask what you’ve been using?”

“I-I’ve just been counting,” Danny managed to get out.

“Do you mean combat breathing? Dr Finnegan noted that as your preferred technique latterly.”

He shook his head slowly. He hadn’t been using that and he wasn’t sure why because it had become his go-to technique. As he posed himself that very question he was struck by a flash of darkness and pain, a feeling of being _trapped_ and… no. He shut down that train of thought, fast.  “No. Just to fifteen,” he mumbled, shifting awkwardly in his seat.

Miller blinked a few times before responding. “That was your own method, the one you used back when you were very sick. Okay. Is it helping?”

Danny bit his lip. It wasn’t a ‘method’. It was so much more than that. It had been his rebellion, his way of trying to make sure justice would be done. His last line of attack, his first line of defence. And it did help, it always helped to an extent. It brought dark memories of its own but they were there anyway now, taunting him, a constant presence dancing around the forefront of his mind. What was the difference? Counting to fifteen was the only thing stopping him jumping off a cliff.

He couldn’t say any of that.

“Some of the time,” he settled on.

The psychiatrist was flicking through Danny’s substantial file again. “Okay. I see in the early days your friend used to count with you and that made a big difference. He helped anchor you when you were feeling particularly distressed. I wonder if that might help you again now? I understand it was Commander McGarrett. We could ask him to step in….”

“No!” Danny yelped and his cheeks were burning now. With a mammoth effort he kept his composure. He shook his head, lowered his voice. “I’d rather do it by myself.”

“There’s no shame in needing support, Danny,” Miller pointed out, one eyebrow cocked.

Danny shook his head. “No. It’s not _normal_. I’m a cop. I shouldn’t need…” He stopped. Those damn tears were threatening again.

“Danny, there are no rules here and every case is different- we just try to find what works best for each individual. Some people benefit from support from specific people, particularly early on or after a setback, and I always encourage that. Parents, family members, partners, close friends. It doesn’t matter as long as there’s absolute trust there. You two… you have a unique history. A unique relationship. I genuinely think it could help.”

But Danny wasn’t budging. It couldn’t happen, he wouldn’t let it happen. “Please. Just no,” he whispered.

 

_SHUT OUT_

Steve pressed his ear to Danny’s bedroom door, quiet as he could.

He could hear his partner murmuring to himself quietly, recognised the pattern and rhythm of the words. He was counting to fifteen, over and over again. Had been doing it ever since they got back three hours earlier. He was struggling, but God, he was trying so hard to keep it together.

Steve’s heart ached for him, he longed to help him. He longed to hold him, help him keep his demons at bay. Make him feel safe again. He needed to tell him he loved him no matter what, he would be there for him always.

But he knew Danny wouldn’t let him. Danny would push him away. Probably kindly, apologetically, after what had happened last night, but it would happen anyway. The longer this went on for- Danny holding him at arms’ length- the harder Steve was finding it.

Steve stood up straight, stepped back from the door. At least he understood now. He got why Danny was being like this with him. He knew his partner didn’t hate him. He just didn’t want to have to be dependent on him again. The revelation had hit him out of nowhere that morning but the more he thought about it the more sense it made.  

He thought of how Danny had been when they first arrived back in Oahu and he’d been admitted to the psychiatric unit at Tripler. Too weak to walk, barely able to speak, remembering nothing but cruelty, he’d trusted Steve blindly. Relied on him completely. He really had been like a child and Steve had done everything and anything to protect him, to help him. He badly wanted to do that again, but that _didn’t_ mean he thought of Danny as weak, as a child. They were equals, partners. Danny had just had a run of the worst luck, to put it mildly.

Steve just loved him, that was all, and not helping him in every way that he could _hurt_. But Danny was a tough guy with a lot of pride to try and salvage. This clearly mattered a lot.

Steve started to doubt himself. Maybe it was _him_. Maybe _he_ was the problem. Maybe he was making it worse, being here like this. Maybe his involvement was doing more harm than good, serving only as a harsh reminder of how bad things had gotten before. Maybe he should step back, let one of the other team members stay here in his place- any one of them would jump at the chance. They were worrying themselves crazy about their stricken friend, even while they were chasing about gathering intel on Thomas.

He moved through to the kitchen, pulled the blinds against the sunlight outside. He’d had enough of the day quite frankly.

A dark mood settled on him. It had been threatening for days but now it moved in silently, encompassing his every thought. He moved to that cupboard, pulled out the whiskey. He should have thrown it out, but he was glad he hadn’t now. He wasn’t going to drink, he just had an urge… to what? Tease himself? Torture himself? Test himself? Something like that. He selected a glass, cracked open the seal on the bottle. He’d buy Danny another.

It poured out smooth and it smelled good. He put it down on the table, sat himself square in front of it and stared at it, chin resting on bridged hands. The amber liquid glowed in the half-light of the room. He imagined taking a drink. Swallowing. The sweet burn as it ran down his throat. The buzzing numbness that would grow around him as the next glass followed close behind, and the next, buffering him from the world.

He missed it.

A noise from Danny’s room jerked him rudely back to reality and he jumped to his feet in a panic, grabbed the glass and poured the stuff down the sink, fast, because he couldn’t give Danny another freaking thing to worry about. He turned to look behind him, filled with dread.

There was no one there. Danny didn’t appear. Steve sagged down, leaning hard against the sink. He closed his eyes. Fuck.

Something was gonna give if things didn’t change soon, one way or another. He had to do something.

Hands shaking, he pulled his cell from his pocket and dialled a familiar number.

_SECOND SESSION_

Danny was back on the edge of that big comfy chair.

Two days had passed since the first session with Miller, just two days. Danny had worked hard trying to stay calm because he had no other choice. He had counted furiously, head pressed hard to his bedroom wall, teeth gritted. He was taking the pills and a familiar buzzing in his head told him they were doing… something. But it was too soon for them to really take effect. It could take weeks for them to make a difference.

The flashbacks hadn’t stopped, the perpetual feeling of sick dread and horror and fear. He’d hidden them from Steve at least, managed to keep it together when they were around each other. Steve wasn’t pushing to get in any more. He was stepping back, giving Danny space. He wasn’t even there all the time. He was going in to work. He was a busy man after all.

Now Chin and Lou and Kono were taking their turns to watch over him, well-briefed, staying distant and careful.

He’d got what he wanted. He wasn’t depending on Steve any more. He was still fucking pathetic.

A new pain lingered inside him, twisted and deep, for what he’d done to the two of them. But if his actions had done one positive thing, it was to seal in him a new determination to _try_ to fix things no matter how overwhelming it seemed. He’d chosen this path, he had to see it through. He had to _try_ to get better. He had to push himself, fight to make progress. He wanted to be well enough to… to speak to his parents, see his kids. To try to earn back Steve’s respect somehow. He couldn’t quite envisage any of those things happening… but _God_ he had to try.

He felt sick with nerves. And more than a little dizzy. He’d sneaked an extra painkiller before he came, hoping it might numb him that little bit more, help him look more normal, maintain a calm façade.

Miller was looking at him again and Danny cursed to himself. He had to try to concentrate this time. Had to keep a lid on his emotions.

“So, how have you been feeling? Did the exercises help?”

The psychiatrist had encouraged him to try to use ‘mindfulness’- a simple technique to distract the mind from stress by focusing on the moment. Looking at things, looking at their colors. Look at the plant, look for the darkest green, the lightest green. That kind of crap.

“A little,” Danny replied. It was a lie- he had tried to stare at the design on the wallpaper but his demons knocked-knocked on the door all the time and the ability to concentrate in that way just wasn’t there. That woman, screaming. The fat bastard sneering. Pain. Hopeless, endless despair.

He’d given up, rubbed his thumb and counted, and wished many times that he could let himself have Steve too. He’d pictured Steve beside him- that really _had_ helped a little.

“Okay. Did you give any more thought to having Commander McGarrett in here with you?”

Danny was apparently surrounded by freaking psychic people. Either that or he was saying things out loud without even realizing. It was a distinct possibility.

He kept his head, answered slowly and clearly. “No. I should be able to face this myself.”

Miller slid his chair just a bit closer to Danny, pinned him with an intelligent gaze. “There’s no one but you that can face this, Danny. It’s my job to make sure you have all the support in place that you require to allow that to happen without making things worse.” He leaned back in his chair again, looking unnervingly casual. “Have you ever gone horse-back riding?”

Danny stared at him, wondering if he was hearing things. He nodded blankly, hoping he was answering the right question. He had. Steve had dragged him out trail riding a few months back. He’d told Danny he had been a good rider before and it should come naturally to him, and unbelievably it had. For a moment Danny considered delving into his new memories for more information about how a city boy like him might have come by that particular skill, but he seemed to have no control over what information appeared when he tried that. He left it at that. It seemed irrelevant anyway.

“OK. Well think of it like getting a leg up onto a really tall horse instead of mounting from the ground. You’re still gonna ride that horse yourself- you’re just getting a hand to get in the right position first. He wouldn’t be processing anything for you… just helping you stay calm while you do it yourself, until things get a little better and staying calm becomes easier for you. That’s all.”

Danny blinked uncertainly. It made sense when he put it like that. Sort of. But it didn’t change the fact he would be leaning on Steve even more than he had done already. He shook his head, jaw thrusting forwards stubbornly.

Miller sighed. “Okay. It’s just a suggestion. Let’s move on. We need to talk targets and methods. I know I mentioned EMDR and Neurofeedback to you when we first met, before you had the accident and you weren’t keen. But given the severity of the symptoms you’re now experiencing, I think it would be a good time to reconsider….”

Danny started to hear static and he jumped in before his temper could have a chance to flare. “No! N-nothing weird, nothing gimmicky, please. Can we just get on? Get it over with? And my target is easy. I just want to get back to where I was. Okay?”

The psychiatrist nodded, face giving nothing away. “Okay… but I’ll give you some leaflets to take away. I do think it would be worth you learning a little more before making a final decision. Okay, before we start, would you allow me to make some basic observations on your history? See if you think I’ve got things right?”

Danny nodded dumbly, for all he couldn’t think of many things worse than sitting listening to a tale of his own psychological woes.

Miller nodded, flicking through the file again, most likely for effect- he looked the type who’d have it all memorised, every last word of Finnegan’s notes down pat. “Okay. Stop me if I’ve got any of this wrong, okay? You have what I would term Complex PTSD- it’s a severe form of PTSD resulting not from a single event but a series of events. You see it in prisoners of war, victims of child abuse. Hostages who’ve been tortured. Survivors of those kind of situations. Would you agree?”

Danny nodded, a big step closer to throwing up as he was reminded succinctly of the category his personal hell slotted into.

“You’ve had a lot to deal with but you were certainly on your way to having processed much of what had happened to you before the accident. You had your symptoms under control to the point where you were able to lead an existence that you were content with without regular issues and you...”

“ _On my way to…_?” Danny choked indignantly, cutting in because he _so_ didn’t agree with that. “I was _fine_. I was _better_. Everything was… _fine_.”

Miller frowned, flicked through the book and tapped a section with his hand. “I’m just going by Dr Finnegan’s notes here, Detective Williams. He said you still had problems with…”

“ _Bullshit_ , this is bullshit!” Danny growled. Shit, he was all over the place. He had to keep it together. “Okay, please, I want to get on, can we get on? Can you just ask me about something, or make me stare at freaking wallpaper, or pot plants or something? Huh? Please.”

Miller smiled tolerantly at the impatient outburst. “We can start, yes. But you’re not calm, you’re not ready to…”

Danny could feel himself swaying, teetering on the cusp of doing something seriously stupid. He took a deep breath. “You know what, I’m as calm as I’m gonna get. I’m ready. Let me talk, I want to talk.”

Miller raised his hands, a placatory gesture. “Okay. Okay. If you feel you need to talk that’s fine. But let’s stick to old ground for now, something you feel you’ve already processed. Nothing new. Agreed?”

“Yes, sure. What?” Danny said, squirming around. Pain shot through his arm out of nowhere and he grimaced.

“Okay,” Miller said. “How about this… can you tell me about the room they kept you in?”

Danny nearly smiled, because he _could_ do this. This he’d told Finnegan, he’d told Steve, he’d told freaking Chin because the man just wanted to know more, wanted to understand more about what he’d been through, where he’d been. This he could do with his eyes shut, this he could do without thinking.

“Sure, of course. It was a cell in the basement of this big old house. I think it was in the jungle, but I’m not sure. The floor was stone but it was dirty. You could only see the slabs here and there. The wall was stone. The ceiling was plastered over. It might’ve been white but it was all tobacco stained, you know? The door was metal, the hinges were on the outside and it was locked with a bolt- also on the outside, clearly. So I couldn’t get out. There was a slot in it, they could slide open a bit of metal and look at me, or throw in stuff. Food, water. Whatever. And it smelt real bad. I had a bucket to piss in but I couldn’t always move, you know? It depended what they’d done to me…”

He took a breath, glanced up before continuing. “Sometimes they played with me in there, sometimes they took me to a different room.”

Then Miller was holding his hand up, stopping him.

“That’s fine Danny, you did great. Can we take a break there and just do some grounding exercises?”

Danny shook his head. He was fine with this, he had to prove he was fine with this. He could do _more_ than this. If he went straight for the hard stuff, Miller would _see_ he was fine with this. They could move on to the stuff he was dreading, but he knew he had to try to face to get back to where he needed to be.

“I’m not done,” he said firmly. “So if there was more than one of them they used to take me to a different room. It was still in the cellar but it was cleaner.  I guess they hated the smell as much as me. They would have drugged me already. I don’t know what they used. I couldn’t move at all but I was aware, you know? I could feel everything.”

He trailed off for a moment, almost letting the memories leak through. But he knew this story well, could tell it without letting that happen. He cleared his throat, pressed on. “Yeah, then they would usually drag me through by my feet. I couldn’t move my head a lot so I mostly remember seeing the ceiling above me in the hall outside the cell. It was stone. Great big flagstones, went clear from wall to wall.” He laughed. “I used to wonder how the hell they’d gotten ‘em up there when they were building the place cause it was an old building, right? Must’ve been before they had cranes. Maybe the same way they built the pyramids, huh?”

He smiled, looking up at Miller in search of a reaction of some kind. The man’s face showed nothing but concern, but he didn’t try to stop him. He plainly wasn’t going to give Danny any fuel, any encouragement to continue. But he was giving him silent permission to get out whatever he felt he had to get out.

Danny dropped his gaze, nodded once in acceptance. “The other room had a few chairs and this old oak table. It wasn’t very big. Just right the right size I guess. So they’d put me face-down across it usually, they’d tie my ankles to the legs so my legs were spread. There were these hook things they’d screwed in the table top and they’d tie my arms so they were stretched out either side of me. I never understood why they bothered with all that when I was drugged. It was stupid really. For show I guess. Then they used to drink together, have fun. Laugh. And I was the entertainment.  I couldn’t move. I was…  I just couldn’t move. So they used to take their time. Sometimes they would cut me up, mostly just with hunting knives, nothin’ fancy. Let me bleed.”

Miller’s deep voice cut into his train of thought. “Danny…  that’s enough now. You should stop.”

Danny shook his head determinedly and carried on regardless. “If they cut me too bad they’d stitch me up again- didn’t want me to die too soon I guess. And they’d usually rape me. Take it in turns, kinda urge each other on. They’d get pissed if I was too cut up or too swollen or whatever so they couldn’t get in. They’d just hold my mouth open then instead. Wasn’t a whole lot I could do about that. It didn’t hurt as much at least, even if it was pretty gross and I guess I kinda choked some.” He snorted. “I got real lucky cause I didn’t catch anything from them. Talk about catching a break, huh!?”

“Danny stop!” Miller said, firm, voice raised a notch.

Danny was finished anyway. His heart was thundering in his ears, but he felt a sense of victory because he’d got it all out and he’d held it together. He’d proved himself. He _could_ manage this by himself. He _didn’t_ need to lean on Steve for this.

Miller wasn’t looking impressed. “Okay, Can I ask you a question? Have you been in a sexual relationship since this happened to you?”

Danny squirmed. “No,” he admitted softly.

“That’s fine. That’s okay. Would you like to be at some point in the future?”

Danny laughed, sharp and nervous. A shudder ran through his body. “No. Look, I don’t need that. It’s not a big deal.”

Miller nodded. “I’ll tell you what I’m hearing. You’ve done great. You’ve made a lot of progress to get to this point. You’re certainly telling your story clearly, calmly and in detail, no doubt you could tell it in a lot more detail than that.”

Danny opened his mouth and Miller held up his hand again, stopping him. “I’m not asking you to. You don’t have to do that now or ever. But I’m wondering if you are able to tell your story from a slightly different perspective.”

“What do you mean?” Danny shook his head in confusion.

“OK, you’re a cop. So it’s like you’re reading out a victim’s statement about the facts of what happened. You’re not connected to the story. You’re not really telling me what happened to _you_.”

“That’s… that’s bullshit,” Danny choked out. “I told you _exactly_ what happened to me.”

“Okay. I hear you. Okay, I want you to breathe for me for a few minutes and then I’ll ask you a question about what you just told me, okay?”

“Sure,” Danny said, trying to make it sound like it was no big deal. He was telling his story wrong? Seriously? And then he was finally sitting back in the freaking comfy chair, he was breathing along with Miller, eyes shut, deep slow breaths in and out, not counting at all, just listening and mirroring what the other man did.

He was going through the motions, that’s what he was doing. His head was spinning. How could he be telling his story wrong? It was _his_ story. He tried to look calm on the outside, but he didn’t feel fucking calm, that was for sure.

It felt like an age before Miller spoke again. “Okay. You’re safe. Everything’s fine. How do you feel right now, Danny?

“Calm. Good.” Danny kept his eyes closed. If he looked at Miller the guy would see through him in a second.

“Okay, Danny. It’s okay if you can’t answer this, but I’d like you to try. What did it feel like to be you when you were tied to that table, waiting to see what they were going to do to you?”

Danny’s eyes sprang open. “I couldn’t do anything about it. That was it.”

Miller nodded encouragingly. “Yes. And how did that make you feel?”

The sweat was running down Danny’s face all of a sudden. Anger, defensiveness, all the bad things were coiling around inside him, searching for a way out. He laughed mockingly. “How did that make me feel? That’s such a cliché!”

Then Miller was looking down, writing a note, then opening his mouth. Danny knew what was coming. He was gonna tell him it was okay, not to worry, or some shit like that because Danny was being a dick to avoid the question and they both knew it. And that meant Miller was right, he hadn’t really come to terms with a damn thing, not properly. And that meant Danny was fucked.

“Okay, okay,” he said in a rush. “It felt….”

He tried to remember then. Took a breath, closed his eyes and actually put himself back there instead of just reciting the words he’d virtually learned by heart.

The room closed in on him. He couldn’t move. There was a flash of a sneering face, a glinting blade, unrelenting agony. A tight knot in his stomach as he wondered if _this_ would be the time they’d kill him. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t fight back, he couldn’t escape. No one had come to rescue him. He just had to lie there, helpless, and suffer.

How had he felt?

Suddenly he was floundering, anchorless amongst the horrors inside. His calm façade was a distant memory, evaporated. He needed Steve. Fuck. Miller had been right. He needed Steve, no matter how much he didn’t want to need him, he fucking needed him. And now, when he needed him the most, he’d fucking pushed him away. Now, Steve wasn’t sitting outside, waiting patiently. Danny didn’t even know where Steve was. It was _Lou_ outside in the waiting room, not Steve at all. He needed Steve!

Feeling trapped, cornered, panting for breath, Danny jerked to his feet, good arm flailing as he nearly over-balanced. “ _Fucking pathetic_!” he yelled “ _That’s how I felt_. Useless and weak and _fucking pathetic_ , just like I do now. You satisfied?!”

He turned and marched out, slamming the door behind him.

TBC

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so... I'm off to a remote island now. Not just hiding, but actually literally, for a week of work. Rushing this chapter out as the boat leaves in... errr.... 30 minutes. Yikes. There will be errors (sorry IC, I don't have time to add in all the periods after 'Dr'. I'll do it next week, I promise.). The chances of internet there are slim to none, so I apologize in advance if there's a shortish hiatus!
> 
> Feedback greatly appreciated!


	10. Devotion

The smooth motion of Lou’s stupidly massive car began to lull Danny away from the defensive fury that had seen him storm from Dr Miller’s office clear out the building. Dark misery was returning in its stead, silent and oppressive. He pressed his aching head to the cool glass of the car window and counted silently, trying to numb himself to whatever the hell had just happened, as the glittering turquoise of the Pacific Ocean swept past his field of vision unseen.

He _had_ dealt with the parts of his ordeal he had never forgotten. He _had_. This was _bullshit_. He’d been coping _fine_ before the accident.

Fat Man sneered at him from the recesses of his mind.

Then the silent tears were falling again and that had got real old, real fast. Danny didn’t cry, it wasn’t normal for him. _Weak. Pathetic_. Those same words cycled round his head, repetition solidifying their meaning further until the tears fell thicker and faster.

He _had_ needed Steve. He _couldn’t_ manage this without him. It was a bitter pill to swallow. He had wanted Steve’s respect, but that wasn’t going to happen. That had to be lost for good now. They weren’t equals, could never be again. Danny was dependent on Steve. He was the weak one, Steve was the strong one. And if Danny came clean now, Steve was gonna think even less of him than he already did.

Danny wasn’t strong enough to manage without him but he didn’t think he was strong enough to ask for his help again either. 

The engine switched off and Danny scrubbed his hand down his face in a hurried attempt to conceal his tears. He looked around dully, expecting to see his apartment block… but saw nothing of the kind. The sea was still right beside him. Other cars were speeding by them.

Lou had pulled over to the side of the highway. What the…?

A chill ran down Danny’s spine as it dawned on him that, short of unexpected mechanical failure or some indication of impending stroke, the only explanation for Lou having stopped here was that he wanted to _talk_. Danny had expected it, _dreaded_ it, when the big man had followed him out through the parking lot to the car, unlocked it to let him in. But he hadn’t uttered a word and Danny had been nothing but relieved about that. But now it looked like that was all gonna change.

Danny’s gaze fixed on a distant fishing boat, far out to sea, and he wished fervently that he was on it. He wasn’t strong enough for this either.

“Now I know I ain’t supposed to ask you anything beyond ‘d’ya want pizza or d’ya want Chinese’, I get that, but you appreciate I’m an old guy and there are limits to my patience,” Lou began, deep voice resonating in the enclosed space. “So you just let me say my piece and then I’ll shut the hell up and get right on back to pretending not to notice while one of my closest friends falls apart in the passenger seat of my family car. Okay?”

There was silence for a few moments and Danny closed his eyes to everything, concentrated on that cool glass.

Lou continued, apparently not perturbed in the slightest by talking to the back of Danny’s head. “Now I get that you’ve got a whole mess of stuff goin’ on that you ain’t up to talkin’ about and I ain’t asking you to. I can respect that. I can pretend like I never saw you come running out that doctor’s office like your ass was on fire. I can pretend it don’t hurt to hear you’re feelin’ so shitty you don’t want to see your own kids. I can pretend we’re all just takin’ turns to hang at your house because you’ve finally got a place with a respectable view or whatever…”

He paused and Danny pressed his head harder against the glass, bracing himself for the ‘but’ he knew had to be on its way.  

“… but what I _am_ struggling to ignore is seeing _you_ here like this, then going in to work and seeing _Steve_ messed the hell up too and I know damn fine it’s because he ain’t the one here with you! I’ll tell ya, Danny, the man’s a liability right now. I’ll swear he nearly shot me yesterday cause I went in your office to borrow a freaking pen. It ain’t my fault those damn things go missin’ every two minutes and I know where you keep your stash, so…”

A brutal stab of guilt prompted Danny to turn his head, glance at the big man, then downwards, gaze resting randomly in the vicinity of his friend’s right knee. Steve was messed up because of him? He should have known. Had he known?

Lou certainly knew Danny. He reached out a careful hand, placed it on Danny’s shoulder. “Now, I ain’t trying to lay no guilt trip on you neither, you got that? Lord knows you’ve got enough going on already. And I don’t wanna piss you off, I don’t wanna upset you. You’re family to me. You and Steve both.”

The grip on Danny’s shoulder tightened. “Don’t get me wrong. I ain’t got nothin’ but love for you and I have no problem with helping you out in any way whatsoever… but I should _not_ be here. It wasn’t me who spent months by your side when you was sick. It wasn’t me who tied myself in freaking knots when you was missing. I had my share of sleepless nights when we couldn’t find you. I shed tears, I did, but I had my family around me and I was getting by, you know? I ain’t the one who missed you so bad I turned to alcohol.”

Lou’s voice dropped another octave so Danny could actually feel it vibrating in his chest. “He needs you, Danny. And right now it sure as hell looks to me like you need him too, cause I’m a great guy but I’m no substitute, not for him, not in this situation. Now Steve won’t tell me what the hell is goin’ on between the two of you but that’s just him, you know what he’s like…. so, Detective Danny Williams, _you_ wanna tell me why you’re in _my_ car right now instead of _his_?”

Danny grimaced, shook his head from side to side. He glanced at Lou again, saw the compassion in the guy’s face. He only had their best interests at heart, he knew that for sure. “It’s the _n-needing_ … that’s the problem,” he found himself saying. “We- we agreed. We weren’t gonna be dependent on each other anymore. I’m just trying to…” He broke off, head hanging low because he’d failed, hadn’t he.

He felt the weight of Lou’s gaze on him for a long moment then the older man laughed out loud. _“Dependent_? Is that what’s stopping you? Jeez, Williams, I thought you were meant to be the smart one.”

And with that, Lou started the car up again, checked his mirrors and pulled back into traffic, leaving Danny blinking in total confusion.

“ _Dependent_. That would be one way to describe it I guess,” Lou said, laughing again as he drove.

Danny stared at the side of his friend’s face wondering vaguely if he was hallucinating. Everything about Lou was suddenly so much more relaxed, like they were just at work or hanging together or something. Like everything was normal and they were just shooting the breeze.

Lou laughed once more, underlining the insanity of the situation. “Dependence- now that is something I’m familiar with.  I guess you could say I’m dependent on Renee and she is on me too. We’ve been together so long I have _no_ idea how either of us would ever manage without the other, I’ll tell you that for nothin’. She don’t know one end of a screwdriver from the other and I ain’t got no clue where we keep the iron. Stupid little things like that.”

Danny smiled weakly, having no idea what else to do.

Lou shot him a smile right back, broad and white. “When my pop died a few years back I was pretty cut up. She kept me going. She was always there for me. Let me cry on her shoulder. Kicked my butt when I was mopin’ too long. I don’t reckon I’d have got through that without her.”

He let that hang for a good few hundred yards, leaving Danny unsure where to look. He picked awkwardly at his splint.

“So,” Lou said eventually, “I guess you could say _we’re_ dependent on each other, me and the missus.  But I prefer not to use the term ‘dependent’. We _ain’t_ dependent on each other coz that makes us sound like pussies, which we ain’t. But if life kicks one of us in the butt, we’re there for each other, no question, no hesitation, no problem. But that ain’t dependence, Danny. It’s _devotion_. Ain’t nothing unhealthy about that between two grown adults who love each other.”

Danny shook his head slowly. “But you’re married. It’s…”

“Different?” Lou cut in, “Look, I have no idea what goes on behind closed doors and that ain’t my business. But I _do_ know that you two boys are as close as two people can be. Call it what you want. Partners, brothers, whatever, it don’t matter a damn.” He snorted with mirth. “ _Dependent._ I mean if he was in your shoes right now would you be helping him out? Or would you be worrying about what to call the fact that sometimes a guy needs to lean on his best friend when the world shits all over him? You know the answer to that, my friend. It’s just your damn bad luck it’s you again this time. You’d do anything for Steve, now give the guy a break and let him do the same for you.”

Danny opened his mouth again, unsure what he was even gonna say, because he could see the sense in Lou’s words, but things were so much more complicated than that with him and Steve.

Lou got there first. “Stop! Don’t say a thing. I don’t get to be right a whole lot of the time, don’t spoil my moment. You just do me a favor and think on that, that’s all I ask. There. I’ve said what I wanted to say, I’ll get right on back to enjoying the scenery.” He leant a little closer, lowering his voice in a conspiratorial fashion. “Though I’ll tell you a secret? I’m pretty sure Renee can use a screwdriver just fine. She just wants me to feel important.”

Lou sat back in the driver’s seat, wriggling his backside in search of a comfortable spot.

Danny turned to stare out the window again, trying vaguely to get his head round Lou’s little speech. He slumped back in his own seat, let himself listen as Lou grumbled to himself under his breath.

“ _Jeez_. Proud, stubborn, they’re both the freaking same.”

_……………………………….._

_Devotion._  Danny played the word round his head as the day went on. It didn’t feel right because it went against everything he believed about himself right then. He didn’t deserve anyone’s devotion, let alone someone like Steve.  

But it wouldn’t leave him alone.

 _Devotion._ It was part and parcel of love, and if there was one thing he _couldn’t_ deny it was that they loved each other. He _would_ do anything to help Steve, Lou was right about that. Even now, even like this, if Steve was in trouble he’d do anything he could to get him out of it. _You hit him. He almost drank,_ countered Fat Man in his head. The feelings of being weak, a let-down, a disappointment- they were deeply ingrained.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur of stress and self-imposed isolation. He thought about that word as best he could in the precious moments when the monsters in his head gave him peace and he didn’t have to count in a frantic attempt to fend them off.

The afternoon came with another appointment- the hospital this time. Lou waited outside as Danny’s splint was taken off and the staples taken out of his wound. The metalwork inside his arm was holding the bone together, negating the need for a cast- an unexpected advantage of having broken it so severely. His sling was all that was required now. He was sent home with another bag of medication and a list of instructions he pretended to listen to when the doctor patiently read them out.

It was ten at night before Danny heard the front door open again, followed by low voices in the kitchen. He was sitting on the floor in his room, back to the wall, head pressed hard to the plasterboard as he counted- his now customary position. He listened, waiting to see who Lou’s relief would be.

 _Steve_. He was back. Danny’s stomach screwed itself into a tight ball. He had been both longing for and dreading his partner’s return. Somehow he was going to have to try to find the courage to ask him for help.

Lou left shortly after, but it was another thirty endless minutes before there was a quiet knock at Danny’s door.

Steve appeared, standing awkwardly in the doorway. His eyes went straight to Danny’s broken arm, lingering there for a few moments before he spoke. “Hey. Can I get you anything?” He sounded fucking exhausted, looked exhausted. Looked terrible in fact. Pale and gaunt. His expression was distant and shuttered. Had Danny done that to him?

Guilt twisting inside again, the few words Danny had thought of went straight out the window. He just shook his head, shifting uncomfortably.

Steve looked down at the ground, nodded resignedly, but then produced a sheet of paper from behind his back. “Don’t know if you read these?”

Danny shook his head again, hating himself and his inability to act like a normal freaking human being. He knew what Steve was showing him- his instructions from the hospital. And the doctor had read them out. Lou had read them out. None of the information had sunk in.

“Okay,” said Steve, in a horribly detached voice. “So it says you can shower now as long as you cover the wound. There’s waterproof dressings in a bag- Lou put it in the bathroom. There’s cream you’re meant to put on the wound after so it doesn’t dry out. That’s in the bag too. And I stopped by the physio earlier. Brought a ball you’re meant to squeeze or something. There’s pictures to show you what to do. Anyway… I think that’s everything new. I’ll… I’ll be through in the kitchen. Got work to do.”

Danny’s stomach dropped. He wanted to ask him to stay. He needed him to stay, so he could _try_ to apologize for everything, try to find a way to explain what was going on in his head. “How’s the case going?” he blurted out desperately. “Did you get him yet? Thomas?”

Steve put up a hand to scratch at the back of his neck, then looked down at the ground. “Er, yeah, pretty good. Our end is pretty much tied together. We’re having to hold off from taking action so we can try to synchronise raids with law enforcement in the other countries where his group is active. We’ll get there. We’ll get him.”

“Good, that’s good. Uhhh…” Danny said eloquently, but he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t take that leap and say what he needed to, ask Steve to bridge the gap Danny had created between them. He just didn’t deserve anything more than he was getting from his partner. _Pathetic. You’re pathetic._

He looked down at his arm, frustrated and embarrassed, willing himself not to cry.

Steve frowned, then glanced at the sheet of instructions. “Oh. You want a hand putting on the waterproof dressing? Is that it? I guess it’ll be tricky one-handed.”

Danny chuffed out a hollow laugh, because taking a shower was far from his mind- Steve really must be tired to be that off the mark. But here was an opportunity to play for time and he wasn’t gonna turn that down in a hurry, so a shower it was. He nodded.

He stood slowly, movements still riddled with pain and stiffness, then padded along behind Steve into the bathroom. He perched in his customary position on the edge of the tub. As Steve dug about in the new bag of stuff, Danny eased his arm out the sling, keen to show he wasn’t entirely helpless. Resting the damaged arm carefully in his lap, he began to unbutton his shirt one-handed. He slipped out of it awkwardly, let it fall to the floor.

“Can I see?”

Steve’s gentle request caught him by surprise. Truth be told, Danny had given precisely zero thought to his latest scar-to-be. It was just the latest addition to an extensive portfolio. He nodded, looking down too, taking in the skin that had been concealed by the splint for so many days.

His whole arm still looked bruised, a mosaic of fading yellows and purples. The wound itself, on the red side of pink, cut through the network of older silver scars. It was long. It stretched from his elbow upwards, stopping a few inches shy of his shoulder. Most of it was neat and straight- deliberate and surgical. An undulating deviation at the lower end was the only sign left of the ragged wound the bone had torn out through. Danny stared at it.

Steve put a hand out, almost touching the arm with the tips of his fingers. He aborted at the last moment and hovered uncertainly. He cleared his throat. “They did a good job. It looks real neat now. When I saw the bone I never would have thought…” he stopped. “Anyway, it looks good.”

“You saw it before they operated?” Danny asked the question without even thinking because that couldn’t be right. He glanced up.

Steve was still staring at his arm. He nodded once, flicking his gaze to Danny’s for less than a second. “Sure.”

That didn’t compute. Steve hadn’t been with him in the car, thank goodness- the last thing he remembered with any clarity was driving along the highway most definitely _alone_. Danny had assumed Steve had gone straight to the hospital when he’d heard, so he couldn’t have seen the injury before it was treated. Could he? “How?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.

“I sat with you while they were cutting you out. It was no big deal,” Steve said dismissively. He straightened up, grabbed the dressing he’d selected and started to apply it to Danny’s arm.

Danny stared at him. He’d sat with him when he was trapped? He shook his head slowly. He just didn’t remember. Steve had sat with him? _Devotion._ Lou’s word meandered through his mind again.

His gaze followed Steve’s movements, mesmerized, watching those long, strong fingers as they rubbed methodically around the adhesive edges of the dressing, smoothing them out, pressing them down on his upper arm so, so carefully.

He glanced up at Steve’s face again, shy. Saw the absolute concentration he was applying to his task. The man was exhausted and he had an important job to do elsewhere. But Steve was still here, no question, even though Danny had been a dick to him, pushed him away. Why was he here? _Devotion._

Danny accidentally caught Steve’s eye.

Steve smiled a sad little smile and looked away, fast. “Done,” he said, then straightened up, turned and took a step towards the door.

He was gonna leave, shut himself away in the kitchen again, pouring over that damn laptop until God knows when in the morning. A sick, panicked feeling crept up on Danny as he felt his moment slipping away and he released a choked ‘Wait!’

Steve stopped, but he didn’t turn. “What is it Danny?” The question was half-hearted, reticent, like he didn’t think he should be asking it or he didn’t want to hear the answer.

Danny’s mouth opened and closed. Nothing came out.

Steve moved back slowly, stood right in front of him. “What’s going on?”

He had to speak, he had to try to fix this! But he didn’t even know what to say, where to start. He stuttered uselessly for a moment, then growled in frustration. Furious with himself, Danny slumped forwards slowly. His forehead met the muscular planes of Steve’s stomach and he stayed there, feeling ridiculous, hiding his face. He couldn’t seem to stop himself pressing harder and harder. He moaned, a soft sound of distress. He was fucking this up big time.

Steve’s big hand came to rest on the back of his head and that little gesture lent Danny the ounce of strength he was lacking. His hand rose up and he grabbed the bottom of Steve’s shirt, gripping the material tight. He pulled downwards.

Steve came easily, dropping down to his knees, cautious eyes searching out Danny’s.

Danny met his gaze, shot him a watery smile. He was so nervous he felt like he might throw up, but this was it. Now or never. He made himself run Lou’s word through his mind once more in a forlorn effort to convince himself he _was_ allowed this, then took a deep breath, gritted his teeth. “I’m sorry,” he pushed out. “I _need_ you.”

It felt like jumping off a cliff.

Steve stared back at him, wide-eyed and disbelieving. Then he virtually melted, expression softening into a complicated mixture of affection and concern and relief.

“I can’t do it without you. None of it.” Danny’s voice broke on every word as he finally managed to choke out something resembling what he’d wanted to say. “I tried. I’m just, I’m too… it’s too hard. _Fuck_. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I need you.”

Steve wrapped his long arms around Danny, encompassing him. That big hand was on the back of his head again, pulling him in until he gave in and let go, let himself lean hard against his best friend.

“You don’t have to be sorry. This is right where I wanna be.” Steve spoke into his hair and there were tears in his voice too.

Wiped out, too tired to find any more words, Danny let his head rest right where it had landed, face pressed into the crook of Steve’s neck. He inhaled deeply, let the familiar clean, musky smell fill his nostrils, his lungs. Let it still his mind. That smell said safety and love and home and right then he couldn’t get enough of it.

He let himself breathe.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IC, KQ thank you!
> 
> Feedback always greatly appreciated.


	11. Anchor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and kudos. Really make it worthwhile. Sorry for the delay- life's a bit crazy at the moment!
> 
> Thanks to KQ and IC for reading this through. I changed a lot at the last minute so all mistakes are totally my own.

Steve sat motionless on Danny’s settee, gazing down at his partner, face soft with affection. The blond man lay sleeping, his head on the SEAL’s lap. He was curled on his side, face turned towards Steve, injured arm topmost and carefully supported in a nest of cushions. Steve was alert, standing guard, ready to help if another nightmare struck.

It was a strange, heady feeling. A bizarre juxtaposition between heavy responsibility and the certain knowledge that Steve was, finally, _exactly_ where he wanted to be. It almost felt like last time, early on, when Danny had first blindly put his faith and trust in Steve, leaned on him without question. When he’d needed Steve right there beside him, his constant presence an anchor to the blond man in a new and terrifying world he simply had no memory of.

Steve shook his head slowly, because the fact that the similarity had lightened his heart at all was severely fucked up. Danny was in dire straits yet again, yet again a victim of circumstances beyond his control. He had been rendered horribly vulnerable and was suffering every waking minute, existing in a terrifyingly bad place. It hurt Steve bad to think he had been going through this alone for days and days for his own fucked up reasons. But still… it now looked like Danny was going to let them climb the mountain he had yet to face together, and to Steve that meant everything.

He’d been toiling, relegated to watching from the side-lines. It had hurt more than he’d let himself admit. Thank God he’d sucked it up and called his AA sponsor when he had because he had been teetering at the edge of a slippery slope. And he’d heeded the advice the guy had given him. Taken a step back, let the others help with looking out for Danny. That had hurt too, but it was necessary damage control. It had given Steve an escape, let him immerse himself in long hours of work, helped him switch off those feelings of rejection and inadequacy for at least some of the day. Kept him away from the drink.

But now… Danny had reached out to him for real. This felt like a brand new start.

Steve moved his right hand, stroking Danny’s soft hair with the gentlest of touches. The fingers of his other hand were resting on Danny’s left thumb, right over his scars, ready to do what needed to be done if Danny awoke in distress and needed to count.

This was what they had done all night. Planned shower abandoned, they had moved through here. They hadn’t talked- Steve already knew what Danny needed right then and talking wasn’t it. They had sat up together, counted together. Danny had let Steve hold him, comfort him, and they’d kept those demons at bay together until finally, _finally_ , the blond man had found sleep.

Steve smiled to himself, because this was the way it was supposed to be again- this was the two of them fighting side by side just like they always did.

Okay, maybe not quite like they always did… one dynamic of their relationship was forever changed.

Steve’s heart softened further as he gazed down at Danny’s sleeping face. How he had never realized before was beyond him, but now he could find some peace in having a name for the complicated way he felt about his partner. In reality it was simple. He was in love. Danny’s humor, his compassion, his feistiness, his loyalty, the unbelievable strength he had demonstrated time and time again as life kicked him down in the very worst of ways… all the things that were Danny Williams had wormed their way under Steve’s skin and into his heart.

But now he was always going to wonder what might have been. He looked at Danny’s lips, tried to imagine how it would have felt to kiss him, tentative and tender, then heated, fired with passion. Then to love him, to take him apart, make him cry out with pleasure.

Steve let out a long breath, an increasingly familiar sadness setting in because it could never be after everything Danny had gone through. He berated himself instantly. He had to file this, tuck it away in one of his little mental compartments, process it another time. Right then, everything had to be about Danny’s problems, not his.

They had an appointment to go see Dr Miller later in the day and, after what Lou had reported back about the way the last one ended, Steve had a suspicion it might be an eventful occasion.

 ………………………………….

“Okay, Danny. When you’re ready I’d like to talk a little about what happened at the end of our last session. Do you feel able to do that?”

Steve didn't know how things had gone down from Danny’s point of view, so when Miller posed that question pretty much right away, it felt a little like he’d been thrown in at the deep end of the pool with his hands tied together because he had literally _no_ idea how Danny might react.

He watched his partner carefully, ready for anything.

He and Danny were seated facing each other, had been counting quietly together in an effort to get the blond man in as good a place as possible before Miller got started. The psychiatrist had sat in silence a short distance away, watching patiently.

Danny, eyes still closed, tensed the instant Miller spoke. Steve automatically tightened the grasp he had on his partner’s good hand. _C’mon, buddy, you can do this._ He tried to project the thought through his touch, tried to will Danny to keep a level head. But when Danny opened his eyes, Steve saw a disconcerting flicker of fear in the familiar clear blue, plain as day, before the shorter man glanced away towards Miller, nodding half-heartedly.

Steve gritted his teeth. His nerves were on edge. He was feeling pretty defensive on Danny’s behalf. He didn’t know what to make of Miller yet. His partner had decided to stop therapy after one session with the guy after all, and Danny’s hasty exit and subsequent breakdown just the day before were hardly glowing recommendations. Miller was going to have to prove himself or they would be going elsewhere after this. However, on the other hand the man had scored major Brownie points when he’d looked nothing short of delighted on seeing Steve striding into his office behind Danny. Steve would wait, reserve judgement. He bit the inside of his lip.

Miller lifted Danny’s file, opened it up on the last page. “Okay Danny,” he began, voice soft and low. “So last time you told me very eloquently about one of your traumatic experiences in Colombia. We started on safer ground- not one of your newly returned memories, but events you had spoken about before with Dr Finnegan. I observed that you were telling your story as a sequence of facts rather than describing how it had felt for you to be in that situation. I asked you to tell me about the feelings you experienced at the time, but you found that hard to speak about. Is that a fair assessment?”

Steve kept his eyes firmly on his partner, but his mind was already whirring. He had assumed Miller would have been taking Danny through the memories that had somehow reappeared as a result of the accident, the things that had Danny tied in knots, but they’d been going over things he had already come to terms with? Why?

Danny merely looked down at the plush beige carpet between his feet and nodded again.

Prompted by Danny’s positive response, Miller continued. “Okay. This is something I would like us to talk about because I’ve seen it many times before and in my experience tackling it head on from the start is the best way forward, particularly when we have as much ground to cover as we do in this case.”

Miller shifted in his chair, cleared his throat, and Steve could _feel_ the guy looking at them intensely. Watching for reaction, any indication that Danny might need him to stop.

“Danny, I suspect that, inadvertently, over time, you’ve learned to tell your story as an _actual_ story- a work of fiction. In your mind when you describe what happened, you are reciting learned lines rather than picturing yourself in the situations you are speaking about. This makes it easier for you to talk about and think about your experiences… but I suspect in this case it also means you haven’t really come to terms with the emotional impact of the abuse you suffered. I suspect that, whilst you were on top of your PTSD symptoms before your accident, they were still affecting your day-to-day life.”

“No, I was coping _fine_ ,” Danny insisted instantly, a waver in his voice giving away his uncertainty. A tremor ran clear through his body. “That doesn’t even make _sense_.”

Steve tightened his hand on Danny’s again. He bit his lip uncertainly, waited to see where Miller was going with this.

“It’s not uncommon, and it’s certainly not deliberate on your part,” Miller clarified hurriedly. “De-personalizing one’s own story is a tactic some PTSD sufferers use to distance themselves from the traumatic events they endured. It’s a form of self-defence. In many cases it helps enormously and some therapists actively encourage it. However- and I’m sorry if this is hard to hear- in this case I believe it’s a form of denial.”

Steve’s hackles rose instantly. “What do you mean?!” He growled ominously, turning abruptly to face the psychiatrist. “Are you saying Dr Finnegan messed up? He seemed to be doing a damn fine job to me!”

Miller seemed unconcerned by the SEAL’s protective display. He smiled tolerantly, shook his head. “Dr Finnegan appears to have done a great job. Commander, every case is different. There are no hard and fast rules for treating PTSD and Dr Finnegan’s work with Danny clearly had great results. I can see why he stuck with his initial approach. But it’s clear from his notes in Danny’s file that he was well aware of this area of avoidance. He would have reached this point too had he continued as Danny’s therapist.”

“But I was fine,” Danny reiterated. “I was doing _fine_. So what does it matter now?”

Danny’s voice was starting to rise and Steve rubbed his thumb firmly over the smaller man's knuckle, drawing his attention. “Hey, easy,” he whispered, leaning forwards and looking searchingly into the smaller man’s eyes. “You’re okay. You need a break?”

Danny dropped his eyes again, bowed his head down and shook it. That carpet seemed to have a freaking magnetic pull on his gaze.

“It can matter a lot,” said Miller, his gaze as piercing as ever but empathic and kind. “You’ve done incredibly well, Danny, and I can understand why you feel you were better before the accident. The severe symptoms you had suffered before, some of which you’re now suffering again, had gone. But the red flag for me was the fact you said that you weren’t interested in ever having a sexual relationship again. You’re young and fit, so to my mind that shouldn’t be the case. I suspect you are concerned, consciously or sub-consciously, that an intimate relationship might bring on negative feelings, even flashbacks or nightmares, so you are avoiding the situation altogether… and _that_ means that, before the accident, while you were doing well, you weren’t quite there- your trauma was still holding you back.”

The psychiatrist raised his eyebrows questioningly. “Does any of this sound right to you, Danny?”

Danny fidgeted awkwardly, his face reddening as he stared intently at that carpet like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. He shrugged, non-committal.

Steve’s stomach had leapt into his mouth at the mere mention of Danny and sexual relationships, as though his own guilty thoughts about his partner had somehow been discovered. But as that illogical reaction subsided, he stared at Miller in surprise as bells started to ring for him. Things began to click into place, one after the other and he realized with a start that everything fit. _Everything_. Miller _was_ right.

Danny hadn’t been okay before the accident, not all of the time, and what the psychiatrist was saying completely explained Danny’s disastrous blind date- he had bolted from a simple kiss offered by a reportedly beautiful lady, after all.   

And the rest- that suggestion that Danny was in denial, the suggestion that had kicked Steve’s protective instincts into overdrive… it was _right_. He and Danny had spoken a lot about what Danny had gone through. It had been painful and horrifying, had put them both through the wringer… But what they had spoken about were facts. Danny had never once said what he had _felt_ while he was being shipped to Colombia, while he was being raped and tortured for months on end. The _facts_ , not the _feelings_. He’d seemed to get calmer over time, it seemed like he was coming to terms with things… could it be he hadn’t been at all? Could it be he had been learning the lines of a story, a story that wouldn’t touch him… and getting good at it, hiding his true emotions from everyone, himself included?

“Jesus, Danny, I think he might be right,” he rasped.

Danny looked up in shock. He shook his head slowly, face crumpling with wavering emotion. “I was fine,” he choked out in weak protest. He sounded so lost Steve just wanted to take him home and hold him and hide him from everything that could hurt him. He pushed down the urge and rubbed the pad of his thumb across Danny’s knuckles again. “It’s okay, D. You can do this, babe. You can. I’m here. You trust me, right?” he murmured.

Danny latched onto his eyes, huffed out a few shaky breaths then nodded brusquely before inevitably letting his gaze sink downwards again.

Steve turned to Miller. “So what do we have to do?”

Miller nodded at him appreciatively before he spoke again. “Danny has a lot to deal with now his memory has returned. I feel it’s important to try to do it right from the start. That’s why I’m bringing all of this up now.”

Steve nodded in absolute agreement, all of a sudden finding himself totally on board with Miller and his fresh insights.

“As I’m sure you both know, the essence of the problem is that the PTSD sufferer’s mind has been so overcome by its experiences that it can get stuck in a loop,” said Miller. “It believes that the sufferer is still physically in that traumatic situation and still in danger, even though in reality the situation has long gone. The sufferer ends up in a constant state of alert, their adrenaline sky-high, their mood erratic, and often images of their experience revisit them in many ways- flashbacks, nightmares and so on. Danny, we can never erase what happened to you but we can do our best to put the _whole_ experience in the past where it belongs, so you don’t have physiological reactions like that anymore. So you can get on with your life. Does that sound good?”

Steve squeezed Danny’s hand but Danny didn’t respond, didn’t look up.

“Danny,” Miller started, then leaned in closer to the two men. “You say you were fine as you were before, but do you want a ‘normal’ life? Do you want to be able to have relationships eventually? Maybe get married, have more kids, something along those lines?”

Now Danny nodded, and he looked up at Steve as he did, and Jesus, for a moment it felt like he was answering a whole different question. He wasn’t, Steve told himself. That wasn’t what this was about. This wasn’t about _them_. Danny had hardly declared undying love- what he’d said that night couldn’t be interpreted as more than an idle interest in a casual fuck that had crossed his mind years earlier. This was just about _Danny_ , making things right for _Danny_.

But Danny was still looking at him, breathing hard, looking like he was about to freaking cry and it was hard to read nothing into that right then. Steve mouthed ‘ _It’s okay’_ at him, gave him an encouraging smile, pretending like he wasn’t thinking the things he was thinking at all.

Miller was silent for a long minute, observing or whatever, then he cleared his throat, broke the moment between the two men. The magnetic pull of the carpet struck again and Danny’s gaze dropped down.

“So, Danny,” the psychiatrist began. “We know where you want to get to. We’ll do our best to help you get there. You have two choices about how to try to make that journey. First choice- you can keep doing what you were doing with Dr Finnegan, talking through what happened to you to try to help you to come to terms with it and put it in the past…  but this time I would be encouraging you to process your emotions at the same time as the facts of what happened. Second choice- we explore the other types of therapy which I know you turned down before, but I think you ought to consider. I really think you might find peace faster with an alternative approach given the severity of your PTSD.”

Steve looked round sharply. “What alternative approaches?” he asked.

“There are several, and some are admittedly controversial, but they all aim to do the same thing- kick the brain out of the loop it’s stuck in without the pain of a patient having to go over and over the events that traumatised them in detail. Exactly why and how these techniques work is poorly understood but they can work quickly. A handful of sessions can make a world of difference in some cases. I can’t help but think, given the prolonged nature of Danny’s trauma, these techniques would be well worth at least trying. Talking through everything that happened… you’ll appreciate the time that could pass before we start to make headway.”

Steve frowned hard, because if there was an easier way… but Danny was already shaking his head, already discounting it. “Look, I’m sorry, I looked stuff up, it just sounded ridiculous. I just… I’m not comfortable with….”

“I know it sounds like a cheat,” Miller responded quickly before he could come out with a flat out ‘no’. “I know you think these are ‘gimmicks’. But these methods can really work. I only have your best interests at heart, I can assure you. Now, I specialize in EMDR and neurofeedback….”

“Eye wiggling and brain zapping?” Danny interrupted with a sneer. “Yeah, I read about them. I read how they’re crazy and they don’t work. That’s why I didn’t want to come here anymore, remember?!”

Steve raised his eyebrows in surprise at the bizarre descriptions and the flash of anger and the outright dismissal. Danny had clearly done some research before making his decision to stop therapy back before the accident but he hated to think his partner might be turning down something that could make things easier for him. But he could practically feel Danny’s fiery anger boiling just below the surface. They could talk about this _after_. He squeezed Danny’s hand again, trying to ground him before that fury rose too far.

Miller raised his hands appeasingly. “I hear you. But bear in mind every method always has its critics. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. However, if you want to keep going with talking therapy we can do that. Please just think about the other methods- take some time to look for positive case studies, not just nay-sayers.”

“Yeah, I’ll think about it.” Danny said, in a way that plainly said he had no intention of thinking about it. “Now can we just get on with it? Please?”

Miller stared from one partner to the other for a long moment before he spoke again. “Okay. If we’re continuing with talking therapy meantime, we must plow on. You need to try to recall the emotions you experienced at the time of your trauma. You need to accept them in the same way you’ve accepted the bare facts of what happened to you. Now do you want to stay with the situation we were discussing last time or would you be more comfortable starting with something different?”

“I just... I just want to get it over with.” Danny rasped. “Same thing, please. Just… I can do it. Just go for it. Please. I’m ready. I’m okay. Let’s go.”

Miller bit his lip. He gave Steve a look that might have meant ‘I’m glad you’re here’, or ‘I need you to do your job right now’, or ‘watch him’. Maybe all three. Then he opened up that file, sat back and began to speak. “Okay… so Danny. You were in the basement, in that second room. You were tied face-down to the table. You’d been drugged, you couldn’t move. The men were in the room, drinking and laughing. You were waiting to see what they were going to do to you. Can you tell me how you felt in that moment?”

Steve cringed as the question came out, stomach dropping fast. No matter how many times he heard details of his partner’s ordeal in Colombia, it still hurt excruciatingly to picture Danny in that situation. It still fed into his own guilt at not having rescued his partner.

He pushed down his reaction because this was still not about him, and he could read the waves of distress coming off Danny. This was where Danny needed him most. He began counting softly, still gripping that hand, stroking that thumb, doing his damndest to keep Danny anchored, providing an easy escape- Danny could switch off and count along with him if things got too bad.

Danny closed his eyes and took a few shaky breaths, hand tightening on Steve’s as he made a concerted effort to keep calm. “O-okay,” he muttered. “Okay I felt… I felt weak. Defeated. Yeah, weak.” His voice was quiet and resigned. But then his eyes sprung open and his gaze was darting about everywhere- the floor, the walls, the ceiling- resting on nothing. Out of nowhere he started talking at a hundred miles an hour, laughing nervously, laughing at _himself_. “I mean anyone else would’ve been outta there, right? Ninja man here would’ve got out the container and swum back to Oahu before we even noticed he was gone. Chin, Kono, they’re so badass they would have beaten their way out, I know they would’ve. And no one else would have been stupid enough to get taken to begin with, I’m meant to be a professional and got taken from right out the front of my own home?!”

The blond man drew a couple more breaths, momentum draining away. “It’s embarrassing. I’m… pathetic. Okay?” he said quietly. “I should have got away and I didn’t.”

Steve was shaking his head because but that was all just _bull_. He couldn’t allow Danny to think like that. “Danny that’s _crazy_ , you weren’t pathetic!” he exclaimed. ”The way it all went down, the way they kept you… _none_ of us could have got out of there. You don’t really think that do you?”

But Miller held up a hand, the movement drawing Steve’s eye. He gave Steve a look before turning back to Danny. “No, it’s okay. I see what you’re saying, Danny. You didn’t manage to fight back or get out of there so you see yourself as a failure…. but do you think maybe you’re looking down on yourself critically, with hindsight, rather than remembering how you really felt in that moment?”

Steve turned back to Danny, because, yes, that, exactly.

But Danny was shaking his head. “I don’t… I don’t understand. Do you not have… can I have stronger drugs? Would that work?”

Steve stared at him. What Miller was asking of him wasn’t technically hard but he just didn’t seem to get it. It was like he had this great mental block, preventing him from doing what Miller was asking him.

“It’s okay. Let me try something different,” said Miller. “We’ve talked about Danny enough for the moment. I want to talk about something slightly different. I’ll give you a hypothetical situation. Let’s say I give you some stronger drugs, they smooth things over and once you’re all healed up you go back to work. Yes?”

Danny nodded, non-commital.

“OK, so you’re working a kidnapping case.  Let’s say it’s a woman. She’s about 30. She’s a tough cookie. Let’s say she teaches martial arts, she’s a black belt in her chosen discipline. But she gets unlucky, gets caught unawares, gets kidnapped.  She’s beaten, raped and locked up somewhere. She’s lying on the ground, hurt pretty bad, tied up tight. Yeah? You following?”

Danny nodded again, lips pursed tight, breaths coming a little too fast now like he knew where this was going and he didn’t like it one bit.

Miller was staring at him intensely.  “Okay, but we have a happy ending! You two solve the case, work out where she is, shoot the bad guy, find her lying there.“ He leaned forwards, cocking his head to the side. “What do _you_ think of her when you see her Danny? She’s meant to be a good fighter- it’s her job- but this terrible thing happened to her. What are _your_ first thoughts when you see her? Do you think she’s weak? She should have escaped herself?”

Danny stared at him. A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. “N-no,” he stuttered after a long pause.

“Okay. So what are your first words to her?”

“I-I tell her she’s safe now,” he rasped, eyes firmly on Miller.

Miller smiled. “Why would you tell her she was safe, Danny?” he said, so, so gently, and Steve held his breath.

“Because sh-she would be….” Danny stopped, mouth hanging open. He licked his lips.

Steve urged him mentally to say the word, to say she would be _scared_ … just like Danny _had_ to have been.

Danny evidently couldn’t do it. He stared at Miller, seemingly unable to draw his eyes away. He began to breathe hard, his face reddening.

Steve pulled on his hand, trying to draw his attention, seeing he needed time out to calm down… but it was too late. Miller had hit that mental block square on again. They had found Danny’s limit already. 

Danny’s eyes, still fixed on Miller, widened with fear. He started to shake. It was as though he was trapped and under attack, with no way to defend himself. He reached out towards Steve with both hands, but he wasn’t meant to use his broken arm yet, it wasn’t ready even for something as simple as that. He cried out in pain, aborting the movement, then stood abruptly, legs braced apart.

Steve followed him up, grabbed his shoulders. “Easy, Danny, easy, you’re okay. Look at me, babe,” he urged, “You’re okay, you’re safe. Look at me, look at me, babe. C’mon, let’s sit down and count, okay? Let's take a break. C’mon.”

Danny turned desperate eyes on Steve and shook his head, took a jerky step towards the door. “Steve I can’t do this. I want to go home. Please can I go home? Please.  I just need to stop. I just…” and then he was gone, out the door in a replay of the premature ending of his last session.

Steve cast a shocked look back towards Miller, then went after his partner.

 ……………………………………………….

Steve drove them back to Danny’s house at a hundred miles an hour, pretty much literally. Danny was shaking from head to foot, breathing hard, face red… he was on that knife edge again, teetering between breaking down and blowing up and Steve wanted to get him out of the open so it could at least happen in private, away from prying eyes.

He couldn’t quite believe it had gone so wrong so fast.

He came to a screeching stop outside Danny’s block, got out and ran round to Danny’s side, virtually man-handled him out the car and steered him to his apartment, one arm round his shoulders, moving him as fast as he was able to move.

When the door closed behind them Danny jerked away from him sharply. Steve stood, back pressed to the front door, holding his breath.

Danny started pacing up and down the hall, movements erratic, shaking like a machine on overload that was about to blow. Then he stopped abruptly, turned to face the wall and pressed his good fist to his forehead.

Steve blew out a long, slow breath, then took a cautious step closer. “Buddy? Can we go sit down? Let me help you, okay?”

Danny didn’t seem to hear him. “What’s wrong with me?” he growled. “Jesus. I should be able to answer a simple question without… _this_. It’s fucking pathetic!” And then he yelled out in fury, then punched out at the wall, then again, then again.

Steve closed the distance between them fast, grabbed his partner’s shoulders and yanked him round to face him, “No, stop!” he exclaimed. “Danny stop, let’s not do this again, _please_ , you’re gonna hurt yourself. C’mon buddy, stop.”

Danny shook his head, hard, and tried to pull back away from him, but Steve held on tight, went with him.

“I thought I was _fixed!_ ” Danny snarled, “but I’ve _never_ been fucking fixed and now I’m more fucked in the head than I’ve ever been! I can’t do this, Steve, I can’t!”

“C’mon, take it easy, calm down, D,” Steve urged, trying to make eye contact with his partner. The blond man was _furious,_  all his fury was directed at himself, none of it at Steve this time.

Then Danny looked at him and the depths of despair and self-hate turned Steve’s stomach, twisting his heart.

“ _I can’t even answer a simple question about how I fucking felt_!” Danny yelled. He stood, blowing hard for a moment, before he continued, voice lower but filled with venom. “And he’s right. Everything that smug bastard says is right! It’s like I don’t want to let myself admit what happened was real but at the same fucking time it’s here in my head all the fucking time and it’s like I’m there, _now_. It’s like it’s still happening. I keep seeing it. And I know how I fucking felt because I feel it _now_ , so why can’t I say it? Huh?”

Steve tried to soothe him, tried to calm him down. “Danny, it’s gonna be okay…”

“Is it?!” Danny rasped, raw agony strewn across his features. “Is it really because I can’t even see a way I can live with myself right now. The shit I keep seeing. I should’ve… I should’ve stopped them, I should have got away… I should have been able to save _her_.”

“Wait, save who, Danno?” Steve asked, and this wasn’t the first time Danny had mentioned a woman. A creeping doubt that she might be real, not a figment of Danny’s drug and nightmare-fueled imagination, edged into Steve’s mind. “Who do you mean, babe?”

But Danny was trying to pull away again, face screwed up in pain, the subject dismissed out of hand. “You wanna know how I felt?” he said, and now he was choking on his own words, emotions boiling up out of control. “I was fucking terrified. That’s how I felt. Terrified. Every single time they did that shit to me I thought I was gonna die. Every time I thought they were gonna kill me. Take me apart one tiny bit at a time. They just kept hurting me and I didn’t even think it was possible to feel that much pain and live, you know? Steve, I was so fucking terrified! I still am fucking terrified and I hate it!”

Steve shifted closer, cupped Danny’s face between his hands, trying to get the frantic man to focus on him. “Breathe, Danny. Breathe. It’s okay. C’mon, it’s gonna be okay, please count with me. Please.”

But Danny was blatantly on the edge of a total breakdown. “I don’t want to feel like this. I don’t want to be scared any more…,” he croaked, frantic. He met Steve’s eye, his own clear blue eyes wide and desperate… then his gaze dropped to Steve’s lips. He froze, breathing hard. “I don’t want to be scared…” he repeated quietly.

Then, no warning, Danny stepped forwards and pressed his body against Steve’s, broken arm and all. He pushed, shoving Steve up against the wall with a bump, his good hand flashing up and latching onto the back of the taller man’s head. Fingers gripping tight to the SEAL’s hair, Danny yanked him downwards. Their faces met. The blond man hesitated for the merest fraction of a second, breath puffing against his partner’s chin, before soft lips were meeting Steve’s, tentative, then hard and fierce and committed.

Steve’s brain stuttered to a halt in total shock. He gasped, he couldn’t help it. Danny took ruthless advantage, instantly pushed his tongue into Steve’s open mouth, forceful and aggressive, teeth clashing and hot as hell and, _God_ , the taste of the blond man… it was amazing.  Steve moaned, thought processes frozen and body heating right up fast. How hadn’t he known before how much he wanted this? How hadn’t he realized?  

For a few long seconds it felt so right, like nothing he could remember experiencing in his entire life. He began to relax into it, eyes falling closed as he nipped gently at Danny’s bottom lip, tasting and teasing, feeling the scratch of the blond man’s stubble like pulses of electricity that ran straight to his cock. His hands dropped down slowly, wrapped round Danny’s back, fingers pressing hard into the bunched muscle.

But then Danny made a little noise, a little whine, totally out of place.

Steve opened his eyes and jerked back to reality with a bump. To his absolute horror he realized Danny was shaking hard, sweat was running down his face. And that hand grasping his hair- that wasn’t passion. Danny was holding onto Steve with a death grip.

Danny was forcing himself to do something that terrified him.

Stomach dropping, Steve shoved him away as a reflex, hard. “Danny, stop!” he blurted out clumsily.

Danny stumbled backwards then stood, gaping, clearly having shocked himself as much as he had Steve. “Shit!” he gasped, “Shit, I’m sorry… oh God, oh God….” He started to back away again, no doubt heading for the refuge of his bedroom, and Steve couldn’t let him go off alone, not like this.

Re-gathering his own thoughts fast, Steve grabbed Danny’s good arm, stopped him in his tracks. “Don’t go. It’s okay. I mean it. We can forget that happened.”

Danny shook his head hard, pulled his arm away and pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead. He bent over sharply at the waist like he’d been punched in the gut, then slowly dropped down to his knees. The fire was gone, the anger was gone. Danny looked lost and defeated. He glanced up at Steve fearfully. “I’m so sorry,” he rasped. “I shouldn’t have done that. I just… I _heard_ you. I heard you say we could have been something if I’d been brave enough to say before. I heard you say you would have shown me how to do it right. I just wanted… I don’t even know. I _love you_ … and I _want_ to want it. I don’t want to be scared of it. I wish I _had_ said something back then. But now….” He looked down at the ground, a picture of utter dejected misery.

Steve’s jaw dropped in shock, the specter of what might have been echoing round his mind yet again. He followed Danny down, knelt in front of him.  He closed his eyes for a moment, shook his head. “Fuck, Danny. I’m sorry, I should never have said anything. I thought you were asleep when I said those things! You don’t need this right now on top of everything else. I’m so sorry.”

And Danny was shaking his head furiously, top lip curled in disgust, in self-reproach. “No, _I’m_ sorry,” he rasped. “I-I shouldn’t have done that. I know you don’t want me like that any more. You used the past tense, didn’t you. I get it. I know it’s different now cause… cause I’m different. And cause they… changed things.”

Steve frowned, unsure what Danny meant. But then the blond man lifted a self-conscious hand to the scar on his face and Steve’s stomach lurched as it dawned on him what his partner believed. Danny thought he didn’t want him anymore because of what had been done to him.

Steve couldn’t let that go, that wouldn’t be right at all, the man’s self-esteem was low enough already. He shook his head emphatically. “No! Danny, no, that’s not it at all!” he exclaimed, then softened his voice, reached forwards to lay his hand against Danny’s face, thumb rubbing tenderly across the skin. “Babe, c’mon, listen to me. Listen.”

As he saw those blue eyes lift reluctantly to meet his, he took a deep breath, solidifying his own resolve, then leant forwards and kissed Danny firmly, right on his scarred cheek. “Present tense, Danny. I feel that way in the present tense, okay?”

Danny stilled, wide-eyed with utter astonishment. He opened his mouth to speak, but Steve shook his head and he stopped.

“But you are not in a place where you are able to do this right now.” Steve said gently. He slid his hands downwards, resting them on Danny’s broad shoulders. “We both know that. And that’s fine. I’m here with you no matter how things are between us. Okay? But we’ve got to put you and me aside right now and get you better before we even think about anything like this. Do you understand me?”

“I’m sorry,” Danny croaked, voice barely a whisper. “I’m just so… _shit_. I don’t even know what I’m doing! I'm just so....”

Steve cut in sharply, because he’d heard more than enough self-hate from the man he loved so much. “Stop! You listen to me. I know you’re feeling shit right now. I know you think you’re weak but you’re the strongest person I know. You are _not_ weak. You’re _not_.” Steve repeated that key fact emphatically, praying it would penetrate Danny’s skull. “If it had been possible for _anyone_ to get away, you would managed it. I know you. You’re tough and resourceful. They just did too good a job. Not one of us could have escaped from that situation. But you know what? You went through hell and you found a way to survive. You made it back to us, babe. Do you know how strong that makes you? Do you have any idea at all? I have more respect for you than for anyone else in the world and that is the truth. I’m not just saying that. You just need a bit of help right now because you've been pushed too far and you’ve gone through too much. No one on earth could come through what you have and be any less fucked up than you are. So right now I want you to trust me and let me make a couple of decisions for you. Can you trust me?”

Danny stared at him with disbelieving eyes for several long seconds before he sagged down. He nodded. “I _do_ trust you,” he whispered.

“Okay. Okay, good. C’mere.” Steve murmured, pulling Danny into an all-encompassing hug. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna take some time out together, get you calm again. Then… then we’re gonna go back to Miller and we’re gonna say ‘yes’ to everything and anything he has on offer that might make things easier for you. Do you hear me? We’re gonna read up about these techniques he’s talking about and we’re gonna take a chance. I’m gonna go with you, every step of the way and you are gonna lean on me because I love you and I want you to. I want to help you beat this. I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer, to any of it. Hear me?”

When Danny nodded meekly against his shoulder Steve let out a shaky breath. He kissed the top of Danny’s head, then rested his cheek against that soft hair, shuddering just a little as his own adrenaline started to disperse. “Good,” he murmured. “That’s good. It’s gonna be okay. I love you. It’s gonna be okay.”

**TBC**


	12. Gimmick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry folks, technical problems with internet access. I won't bore you with the details. Thanks KQ and IC as ever :)

Danny stared intently at the flickering red line on the computer screen as he tried his damndest to make it extend to the right using just the power of his mind.

It was crazy. He felt like an idiot, like everyone around him and everything in his head was laughing at him. He had thought it was crazy when he had first read about it before the accident. He had thought it was crazy when he had agreed to try it, for all the boundless enthusiasm Steve had inflicted on him after reading a pile of relevant case studies almost as high as Danny. And here he was at the second neurofeedback therapy session of the week, still thinking the same thing. Freaking crazy. ‘Brain zapping’- that was what the critics had called it. ‘A pointless show with limited psychosomatic results.’

The general concept of what the neurofeedback was trying to fix wasn’t that hard to accept. It wasn’t that far removed from what he had previously been told about what was wrong with his head.

The theory, apparently, as far as he understood it (which was not very far), was that his PTSD symptoms were the result of the electromagnetic waves produced by his brain having been all fucked to hell by his various traumatic experiences . His brain had been so stressed it had effectively short-circuited. It was stuck in a loop, thinking he was still experiencing those terrifying events first hand… and it was telling him to react as such, helpfully providing pumping endorphins and rushing adrenaline to complete the petrifying effect. It made everything he saw feel _real_ and _now_ and scary as hell.

And yeah, that was how things felt alright, so he could maybe get his head round the brainwave thing… but the next bit? The treatment? Crazy.

He was staring at a computer screen looking at live readouts of the electromagnetic waves produced by own brain, represented in graphic form- lines or graphs or freaking _rockets_ flying through space. And he was trying to _change_ the pictures- and therefore his brainwaves- just by _thinking_ about changing them. By relaxing and just… fiddling about in his head, finding out what worked- if anything. What made the line longer or made the wiggly graph wigglier or made the freaking rocket fly faster.

Supposedly the process of learning how to do these bizarre, seemingly irrelevant ‘exercises’ could ‘train’ your brainwaves back into whatever pretty patterns they were supposed to make. It could re-boot his mind like it was a freaking computer that had crashed, kick it out of the endless, poisonous cycle it was in so it remembered the events that haunted him were _over_. They could become distant bad memories instead of interactive, life-stopping horrors. No talking about what had happened required, no thinking about what had happened required.

Yeah, crazy. Genuinely stupidly crazy. Danny didn’t buy it for a second. It made no sense to him whatsoever. It was a con. Miller _had_ to be laughing at him. He was taking the insurance pay-outs, rubbing his hands with glee and laughing behind their backs as the stupid broken cop sat staring at a screen trying to move images with his mind.

Danny glanced at the man himself who was fiddling about with the settings on the computer. Yeah, he was hiding it well behind the calm compassion and constructive suggestions… but inside he had to be laughing.

But Danny had no choice but to go along with it. He was screwed.

It had become pretty fucking clear that he wasn’t able to talk about things- not in the way Miller had convinced him he really needed to. He couldn’t even bring himself to voice any of the new stuff in the old way, as a detached story. He couldn’t do it- not for him, not for Miller, not for Steve. He felt like he had failed Steve all over again.  

Last time, after Colombia, once his ability to communicate with words had come back online, Steve had asked him to start to share whenever he had a nightmare or a flashback. He had done so and, for all it had been painful for both of them, in the strangest ways it had helped too. It had helped Danny process what had happened to an extent at least, and for Steve... it seemed like there was like this deep itch Steve had inside, a need to _understand_ exactly what Danny had suffered through. It was maybe the investigator in him wanting to gather together all the facts, reconstruct a blow-by-blow account of the crime in all its gory details… but it was more than that too. It was almost as though he thought he could be there for Danny in retrospect or something. Danny didn’t quite get it, but he knew it was real to Steve.

But Danny just couldn’t do the sharing thing beyond the old, learned, impersonal versions of stories that he now knew hadn’t really fixed him at all. Even now he’d pretty much come to terms with it being okay to lean on Steve, talking about his ordeal was too hard, too painful. It twisted his mind and gave his demons carte blanche to run riot no matter how hard he tried to stay calm. When he talked about it he _saw_ it and he _felt_ like he was there again. It was terrifying, nauseating, horrifying.  It _wasn’t_ helping, it was doing the opposite of helping.

So yeah, this was it, this was the alternative. Here he was, sitting on another big comfy chair, freaking wires attached to his head, staring at a screen and feeling like a fool.

He hadn’t managed any of the exercises first time, hadn’t been able to concentrate at all. He’d felt so ridiculous that the spectre of Fat Man began to laugh and laugh at him inside his head, the noise echoing around until it seemed to become real, until he felt the ghostly touch of big hands gripping his shoulders, of hot breath panting against his neck, of weight on his back, of hot stabbing pain… but then as the panic started to set in Steve had reached over and grabbed his hand, anchored him back to the real world just in time, just before the brewing flashback took hold of him. It was like he could just tell when Danny was losing it.

This was why Danny was here. He trusted Steve. Steve had his back. Having Steve with him… it had helped so much. His steady presence, his willing support, his grounding touches. Since he had let Steve back in, Danny hadn’t been going over the edge as much, he hadn’t been perpetually terrified and angry. Now Steve thought this was the right thing to try so Danny was damn well trying it.

He thought of the specific case study that Steve had read to him at least four times before Danny had agreed that yes, maybe neurofeedback therapy was worth a shot.

_Ed, 53, fought in Iraq 2003. He had been a prisoner of war, had been interrogated and tortured for weeks on end. He was eventually freed but was haunted by the brutal treatment he had endured. For ten years he lived on a knife edge. He was the nicest of guys by nature, but he suffered frequent violent flashbacks and an almost complete loss of control over his emotions, notably anger. As a result he had lost his wife, his job and any self-respect he might once have had. He became an alcoholic. He had tried various forms of talking therapy throughout these 10 years with varying degrees of success. The intensity of his symptoms came and went. But any improvement could be negated without warning by the most mundane of events. A firework going off. A child screaming._

_After a month of twice-weekly neurofeedback therapy he reported feeling calm. He stated he now had a window in time between experiencing something that would once have brought on a flashback or a loss of emotional control and actually having a reaction. That time delay gave him the ability to influence his own reaction. He had self-control._

_One year on he has had no more flashbacks. He is sober. He has a job and a home. He says he still remembers everything that happened to him, but it feels like it’s over. It can’t touch him anymore._

Yeah, it sounded relevant, it sounded good. It sounded way too good to be true, that was the problem. Just because those words were written in whatever academic paper Steve had fished them out of, didn’t make them fact. Results can be faked. Other influential factors can be ignored.

Danny felt cynical as hell. He felt like he was beyond help- doomed to a life of unpredictable misery, a life of alienating the people he loved.

He cringed, inevitably thinking of his behaviour a handful of days earlier. He had virtually forced himself on his bewildered partner. Admittedly he’d been in the middle of an emotional meltdown, but still. It was horribly wrong and fucked up and… he was broken and not fit to be in the proximity of other human beings. He tried reminding himself of Steve’s reassurances that he didn’t see Danny as weak in spite of everything, but he _felt_ weak. Certainly not worthy of Steve’s love and attention.

In danger of floundering thanks to his own meandering thoughts, Danny glanced over Steve.

Steve was looking as intently at the screen as Danny was meant to be. Those big, soulful eyes were doing complicated things again- Danny saw anxiety, scepticism- yes, he had a touch of that too, it wasn’t just Danny- but there was also hope. He still had faith in Danny, genuinely believed he had the strength to dig himself out of the deep, dark hole he’d found himself in with the right support. Danny stared, wishing he could be the person Steve apparently thought he was instead of the pathetic, angry, distraught figure who was trapped in that cell in the basement again after all this time.

The taller man flicked his gaze towards Danny, apparently registering that the blond man was looking at him instead of the screen. He narrowed his eyes, shot Danny a warning look that spoke as clearly as if he’d yelled in Danny’s ear. _Concentrate_! _It won’t work unless you concentrate! You promised you’d try…_ But then the look softened. Steve turned his attention back to the screen, fast, the corner of his mouth hooking up into an affectionate smile, quickly hidden.

Danny’s stomach did something resembling a back flip all of its own accord. Love and devotion- Steve was displaying both freely, giving them by the bucket load, just as he always had. But now, since Steve had told him how he felt in the _present tense-_ God! Now whenever Danny saw those feelings manifested in actions and expressions and words it did funny things to his insides in spite of his state of mind. He _wanted_ to be worthy of that attention. He wanted… more with Steve.

He bit his lip, genuinely afraid to let himself follow this line of thought any further. The path from love to potential relationship to physical intimacy was well guarded by all the demons in his head and the wrongs that had been done to him. They sat there, close to the surface, waiting for the slightest opportunity to drag him downwards. Steve was right- he wasn’t ready. Might never be ready. But Jesus he had to at least try.

He looked at the red line again, gritted his teeth and redoubled his concentration.

……………………………………………………..

Much later that day Danny was gritting his teeth again in a totally different context.

He was back in his own bedroom, lying part way down his bed, right at the very edge of the mattress. His injured arm was suspended over the side, supported in Steve’s careful grasp as the taller man moved it through the series of range-of-motion exercises that had been prescribed by the physio. Danny still wasn’t allowed to move the limb himself but they had to keep the muscles supple, preserve and improve the movement it was capable of if he wanted any chance of a full physical recovery.

Steve’s grip at wrist and elbow was firm but gentle. He worked persistently, extending the arm fully down by Danny’s side, then up into the air, then so, so carefully up above Danny’s head. That one hurt the worst of all, but it had to be done. Danny was well-practiced at blanking out physical pain and he did that now, stubbornly ignoring the constant raw ache and unpredictable fiery bursts of agony in favor of watching Steve through half-lidded eyes as his partner worked the damaged limb.

Steve’s face was set in absolute concentration. Danny gazed at the handsome features, the expressive eyes, the soft lips. He cast his gaze downwards, over broad shoulders and muscular arms towards those strong, callused hands- the hands that always touched him so carefully, so tenderly. The pressure of Steve’s grip was just right as ever, the constant warmth of his hands leaching reassuringly into Danny’s skin.

He felt the weight of Steve’s gaze fall on him and he glanced up, self-conscious. Steve smiled a little half-smile, love and affection oozing shamelessly from every pore.

Danny’s stomach did that lurching thing again. He stared helplessly into those stormy blue-gray eyes, heart beating faster and, _God_ , all of a sudden he wanted to be brave and do something stupid all over again… but that had gone pretty spectacularly wrong the first time. Bad idea. He looked away hurriedly, randomly focusing on the bookshelf in the corner of his room.

Steve began to work his arm again without comment, but Danny could still _feel_ him watching.

What was he so scared of anyway? Steve’s touch? No, they touched all the time, it was never an issue, never had been an issue. There was too much trust between them- it was a basic building block-fact of life that Danny _knew_ right down to the darkest depths of his sub-conscious. Steve would never hurt him. Steve would never force him to do anything he didn’t want to. He shouldn’t be scared of doing _anything_ with Steve.

Maybe he could try to _imagine_ what it might be like to do more... maybe that would be a good first step.

He gave in and closed his eyes, imagined those long, strong fingers were touching him with a different intent altogether. One hand sliding up his arm, slow and sensuous, coming to a rest on his shoulder. Fingertips digging in there by the slightest amount. Warm breath against his cheek. That familiar clean, masculine scent surrounding him. A white smile, a soft whisper in his ear. _I’ve got you. Trust me._ The other hand rubbing hot circles on his stomach, ever lower, fingertips pushing under his waistband….

He found himself standing at the edge of a precipice. His thoughts ground to a complete halt. He teetered there, trying to make himself take the next step, keep the fantasy going past a PG rating.

He couldn’t do it. The prospect of what might happen was too much, too terrifying. The ever-presence threat that Fat Man would magically appear, that Danny would see his leering face, feel pudgy hands grab his hips with bruising force, shoving him over onto his stomach. That Danny would re-live any one of the brutal rapes he endured, or worse… that he’d see what they did to _her_ again, because _that_ was what he was struggling with the most. That was the newly recovered memory that just replayed and replayed. That was the one that _hurt_. He just wasn’t strong enough to face up to it, invite it into the forefront of his mind. He was too scared.

Danny shook his head slowly, face twisting in utter frustration. That bastard Fat Man might be dead in reality but the echo of him lived on inside him, intent on ruining his life, destroying his every chance for happiness.

“Hey… you still with me?”

Steve had noticed Danny’s distress- _of course_ Steve had noticed. And when Danny didn’t manage to muster an answer immediately, Steve apparently made the executive decision that the physio session was done. He ushered Danny over, herding him insistently until he was in the middle of the bed, propped up on pillows, arm carefully supported by his side.

Steve sat on the edge of the bed facing him, hands joined in his lap, eyes filled with concern. “What happened there?” he asked quietly. “Did I hurt you?”

Danny could hear the burgeoning guilt in Steve’s voice and he cringed. “No!” he exclaimed, “It’s not you, not your fault. Just… just the stuff in my head. It’s just… hard sometimes.”

There was a short hesitation, and in an unexpected moment of complete clarity, Danny could virtually hear the response Steve wanted to give- the question that he would have asked without hesitation before Danny pushed him away, before Danny punched him and freaked out at the psychiatrists and had basically, albeit inadvertently, done his best to destroy everything the two partners had ever been. _Tell me about it. I’m here for you, talk to me._

And Danny could also hear the self-control required to give the basic reply that actually passed his partner’s lips.

“Okay,” Steve said simply. “You need to count?”

Danny stared at Steve. He saw the love and devotion and concern… and the _frustration_. Danny wished he could do at least that one thing for Steve. He wished he could talk about it without freaking out. He might never be strong enough to enter into a relationship, but if he could fix things enough for them to be the way they used to be, that would be something. He wished the paroxetine was doing something more than making his head buzz, wished the neurofeedback therapy was smoothing out his brainwaves or whatever.

But then Steve’s big hand shifted to his shoulder and tightened. Danny felt all that love and support infusing into him… and it was like someone pressing a button.

“S-Steve… I remembered what h-happened… wh-when they broke me, I r-remember…. I should tell you…,” he stuttered breathlessly, then faltered. He squeezed his eyes shut, drawing deep, shaky breaths, having no idea if he could go on.

Steve’s hand found its way to his cheek and Danny closed his eyes tighter.

“No, you don’t have to do this, babe,” came his partner’s low voice, rich with emotion. “You know you don’t have to tell me about it, right? You’ve got to give the neurofeedback a chance to work. You might not have to put yourself through this at all. Just be patient.”

But in that moment Danny knew for sure he _did_ have to tell him, and then it was all just pouring out, he couldn’t stop it if he tried. He kept his eyes closed, shutting out everything but the words he was saying.  

“I-I have to. I _want_ to. It’s there all the time and I… it matters so you should know. It was this _girl_ … I don’t even know who she was…. There was this one day, they’d just finished with me and thrown me back in the cell. I just couldn’t move. I was just… it was really bad that time. They’d been drinking a lot and they got… it was just bad.” His voice was wavering and cracking and breaking as he spoke. He paused, drew a shaky breath but then pressed on fast. “So I was lying there after. I was bleeding. I couldn’t move. I thought maybe I was gonna die that time, you know? Then this girl came in. And she was so gentle and nice. She said _sorry_.”

Danny’s faltering voice failed him altogether and he pressed the heel of his good hand to his forehead, grimacing in distress. Steve’s thumb started to caress his scarred cheek, his other hand squeezing his shoulder gently.

He snorted, solidifying his determination. “So she… uh …. cleaned me up a bit and gave me water. It was just… it was incredible. It was just like this fucking miracle. Someone being nice to me, you know?” He laughed then, high-pitched and unnatural and the noise made him cringe, but Steve just kept stroking him slow and steady with that callused thumb until he fell silent again.  

Danny let his eyes crack open and regarded Steve’s blurred outline through watery vision. “It was like she was an angel or something. That sounds so corny but… yeah, like that. A-and she had these beautiful brown eyes. I remember thinking they looked a little… a little like Grace’s.”

His voice broke on his daughter’s name and he drew a shuddering breath. A hot tear ran down his cheek. Steve’s thumb swiped it away, halting its burning track.

“She looked so _scared_. She must have just snuck in I guess- I could tell she wasn’t meant to be there. I don’t know how she knew I was there, or who she was. She kinda looked like one of them. I thought it was maybe his sister or something but… maybe not, not with what they did after. They… they must have realized what she’d done and they were really, really pissed.” He stopped again, shuddering bodily, quaking inside.

He blinked frantically, trying to clear his vision so he could focus on his partner in search of the strength to go on. When he finally made out Steve’s expression his heart twisted. The familiar eyes were filled with pain and dread. The taller man was biting his lip, indecision written across his face. Danny knew why- Steve wanted to hear this, but he was terrified for _him,_ for Danny, terrified of the effect telling the story might have on him.

But as Steve stared into Danny’s eyes, intense and measuring, the indecision fell away. Nodding once, Steve rubbed his thumb across Danny’s cheek again, swiping away another stray tear, and shot him a ghost of a smile. “What happened, Danno?” he asked softly.

Danny smiled back, a twisted, tear-filled echo of Steve’s gesture, a brief acknowledgement of the support and the permission. Then his good hand was reaching over, gripping tight at the material of Steve’s shirt, bad hand making an aborted movement to do the same. He stared back into Steve’s eyes beseechingly and shook his head slowly. “I couldn’t move. I couldn’t help her. I tried. I really did, I…” he choked back a sob. “He said it was _my fault_ they were doing it.”

He hesitated, breathing hard, latched immovably onto Steve’s supportive gaze, then forced himself to speak again.

“They raped her too.” It came out as a whisper, and Danny felt Steve’s grip on his shoulder tighten, saw his partner’s eyes squeeze shut.

“He made me watch… he made me watch. Him and two of the others… they raped her and beat her. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t stop them. I tried, I swear I tried. And she was crying, she was begging them to stop. But they _wouldn’t_. They wouldn’t leave her alone. Then that fat bastard got out his knife. I asked him not to do it. I _begged_ him, Steve I swear I did… but he cut her up real slow, real bad- her chest and her gut.”

Danny drew a few ragged breaths before he went on. “Then... she was lying there after. She went real quiet and still and Fat Man dragged me over beside her, made me look at her. Then… I just _lay_ there and held her hand and she looked at me and her eyes… _fuck_ … but then she was gone. He said it was _my fault_ , Steve.”

Steve was shaking his head, his own eyes shining with tears. “Jesus, Danny, I’m so sorry. Babe, I’m so, so sorry,” he murmured, his other hand rising to Danny’s cheek so he was cupping the blond man’s face. 

Danny shook his head in utter misery, toiling to stem the waves of grief that threatened to swamp him. “They did that to her because of _me_! I couldn’t help her. And I forgot all about her, how could I forget about her?! Jesus, they killed her, Steve, they killed her because of me. What am I meant to… how am I meant to…?” He sobbed, deep and uncontrolled, his tears beginning to fall thick and fast. “I couldn’t do anything. She was so _scared_. I was… I didn’t know how to help. Steve. Fuck, _I_ was so scared. Fuck, fuck. They did it to her because she helped me, Steve. I don’t even know her _name_.”

Then Steve was gathering him up, wrapping him in a careful embrace, somehow supporting his arm between them while wrapping his long arms right around Danny and started to whisper in his ear, his own tears coloring his voice. “C’mere, Danny, c’mere. Easy babe. Shhh. Just breathe. It _wasn’t_ your fault, it’s all on them, all of it. It’s over now. It’s okay. You’re okay. Easy, just breathe. It’s over Danny. It’s over.”

Danny pressed his face against Steve’s broad chest and let go, let himself unravel. He cried for the poor dead girl and for himself and for all the people he was hurting by not being able to get past this- his kids and his friends and his family and his partner.

Steve held him and kissed his head and murmured reassurance as he sobbed so hard it hurt.

The minutes slid by and the agonising grip of the grief slowly eased, but Danny kept his face hidden, kept himself pressed against his partner. His breath hitched painfully and he was trembling hard, shaking as the adrenaline slowly dispersed.  Steve held him tight, hands roaming slowly, stroking his back and his shoulders and his head and he took it all, soaking up every ounce of comfort.

As the ability to think slowly returned, Danny blinked in astonishment because he’d just told Steve about the darkest moment of his whole life, feelings and all. He’d put it all into words for the very first time and it hurt, Jesus it hurt. Yeah, he was shaken, yeah he was upset… but he hadn’t lost control. He hadn’t erupted into raging fury or been sucked away by a flashback. He shared, he had grieved… and now he was calming down again.

It felt wrong, like something was missing. It couldn’t be real. The neurofeedback couldn't be working. Could it? It had to be some kind of trick, some kind of temporary effect.

He sat there, Steve stroking his back, whispering in his ear and he let him. He kept his face buried in Steve’s shirt, inhaling deeply, drawing in the grounding scent of the man he loved. He listened as Steve counted in his ear, soft breaths playing on his neck, and he kept on waiting for the full impact to hit him. He kept on waiting for the terror and the fury and the time jumps.  For Fat Man’s mocking laugh replaying in his ear.

It didn’t happen, none of it.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback welcome with open arms. There's a terrible pun in there somewhere I'm sure.
> 
> The technique is real, if anyone is interested at all.


	13. Memories

_Four weeks later._

Danny sat on the cool grass in the shade of the old acacia tree at the edge of Steve’s lanaii, arms wrapped around his drawn-up knees. He shifted, flexing the muscles of his healing limb awkwardly.

He was watching in reflective silence as his friends and his kids played about together almost as though nothing had ever happened. He was hiding behind his dark glasses, periodically having to remind himself he wasn’t an intrusive observer- he was allowed these people and this life.

He was doing good now, though. He was five weeks into neurofeedback therapy and he’d turned a corner, for all his initial scepticism. All the indications were that he was destined to be a case study of just how well it could work. Maybe his story would be read out to some other cynical broken person by their desperate best friend in the future, who knew. Whatever. For him, it seemed to be working.

All his bad memories were still there and always would be- they were part of who he was- but he seemed to have lost the freak-out button that had been associated with them since the accident. They were still upsetting, but he could access them, talk about them, without actually re-experiencing them. The adrenaline, the terror and the panic that had accompanied them before was absent. He was in control again. He was getting his life back.

He felt a little like he was just emerging from hibernation- shaky and tired, but gradually getting his bearings again. His one big remaining fear- the panic button hadn’t really gone, it had just been buried and it might still be triggered, might take him back to those dark places again.

Inevitably, Danny’s gaze was drawn to Steve. The SEAL was clowning around with Charlie in the water.  He smiled faintly as Steve rose up out of the sea with Danny’s son on his shoulders, the boy squealing with absolute delight. Steve was grinning fiercely, looking every inch the hero from some Greek fable. Steve’s tattooed arms glistened with sea-water, muscles exquisitely defined by the bright sunlight. His wet board shorts clung to every curve. The man’s kind-hearted nature and perfect physique were being showcased together yet again, and yet again Danny _wanted_. He huffed out a slow, sad breath. Certain situations he still wouldn’t dare put himself in just in case he ended up back at square one. He just couldn’t see that changing.

Danny’s gaze lingered on the sight for a few long moments before he made himself look away for the sake of his own sanity. He turned instead to watch Grace and Kono, who were testing his nerves in a different way. They seemed to be competing to see who could hold their breath under the water for the longest. Not content to just worry him in that particular manner, during their periodic breaks they were standing close together, talking in a conspiratorial fashion. He saw the occasional glance come his way- he was clearly the subject of the conversation. Grace’s pretty face looked grave, her big brown eyes doing a poor job of hiding her anxiety.

His daughter had been treading carefully around him from the moment he’d been confident enough in his own self-control for a first reunion three weeks earlier. Heartfelt hugs and kisses all round had been followed by Steve-designed distractions from the potential intensity of the situation- bucket loads of ice-cream, flaming fire-pits and epic water pistol fights had been high on the agenda. However, Danny still owed his daughter a proper conversation- an explanation of his behaviour.

Charlie had been won over in a flash, of course, the month-long enforced separation from his father all but forgotten. But Grace had held back and Danny needed to talk to her. Choose his moment, wait until they were alone. He was nervous as hell about it, not just because he was afraid she would never really forgive him for pushing her away, but also because he was worried she would want to know more about the things that had been haunting him. She was older now, sharp and inquisitive. She might demand details she’d always been protected from before and he didn’t know what to do about that. The idea of her knowing everything that had happened to him was unbearable but it would be difficult to explain why he was still being badly affected by it years later without a pretty clear indication of just how bad things had been for him.

But the dilemma over the timing of the talk was ended as a look of determination came over the teenage girl. With a nod to Kono, she strode towards him, poker-faced. He watched her approach, heart beat accelerating rapidly. She plonked down on the grass beside him and mirrored his position, looking over towards her brother and his antics.

“So…,” she began. “Uncle Chin and Uncle Lou are here. You hungry? I don’t mind sitting with you if you’re not….”

Danny blinked in confusion, then looked round behind him and, sure enough, a stack of pizza boxes had now materialised on a table up near the house. Chin and Lou were busy spreading out drinks and salad to go with the pies. He hadn’t even realized they had arrived. Father and daughter watched in silence as the others began to make their way over to the food, ever-hungry Charlie whooping excitedly. Neither made a move to join them.

Everyone bypassed the seated pair carefully. It all felt _orchestrated_ , Danny realized. He was being handed his chance. He pulled off his sunglasses and laid them down on the ground beside him, then took a deep breath, heart in his mouth. “Monkey,” he began, “I’m so sorry I couldn’t see you for so long after the accident. I was….”

Grace’s arm flashed out and she laid her hand over his. “It’s okay, Danno. I know all about it. Uncle Steve told us you weren’t well after the accident because you got back your memory and it was really hard for you for a while because of the bad things that happened to you before. He said you always loved us and you just needed some time to sort out your head. I was…,” she hesitated, bit her lip. “Okay I was kind of annoyed because I thought you didn’t think I was grown-up enough to handle it. But Steve explained everything. He said it wasn’t about what you thought of me at all. He said it was just about you. You were ashamed because you got sick again and it would just take you a while to remember it wasn’t your fault. So it’s okay. I understand.”

Danny’s jaw dropped lower and lower as she spoke. His job had been done for him, and better than he could have hoped to do it himself.

He found his gaze seeking out Steve like he had a magnetic attraction to the man. The SEAL was laughing at something Chin had just said, hand on the older man’s shoulder. But Danny saw him cast a surreptitious glance in their direction- it was pretty obvious where his attention was really focused.

“Uncle Steve said all that?” Danny rasped, turning back to Grace.

The girl smiled reassuringly at him, making him feel about ten years old. “Sure. He called us every day to tell us how you were doing and he took us out for ice cream too, while Uncle Lou was with you I think.”

Danny’s eyes welled and he squeezed them shut, torn between feeling two foot tall and being overwhelmed with gratitude.

Grace slid closer to him and put a hand on his knee, then leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I really missed you but I understand. You were sick and you needed space. It’s fine. I get it and Charlie does too. We both love you.”

He choked, emotion flooding up and overspilling. He had misunderstood. Here he was thinking things were awkward with Grace because he needed to explain himself to her. It wasn’t that at all. Things had been awkward because she’d been searching for a way to tell him everything was okay, to reassure her own father. And what she’d come up with was every word he had needed to hear.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her closer, strong arm wrapping around her back, healing one rising slowly to complete the solid embrace. “I love you too, monkey,” he choked out. “Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me. I’m sorry anyway, I am. But just… thank you.”

He kissed her hair, and when they pulled apart he kept an arm around her back, tucked her under his shoulder. They sat there, staring out to sea, each unwilling to break the moment by moving.

“So…,” said Grace evenly after a few minutes of peaceful, companionable silence. “You remember everything then?”

Danny tensed instantly, because he had been dreading this too, waiting to learn what details she was going to want to know. He nodded, cleared his throat. “Pretty much,” he said, non-committal. He kept his gaze fixed on the undulating ocean. “Not the accident, but apart from that.”

“Okay…,” she continued hesitantly, “Do you remember when I was born?”

Danny laughed out loud in complete and utter relief. He took a moment, then dived headlong into those long-lost memories to see what he could come up with. He smiled, kissed the side of her head. “Sure! I remember how tiny you were, and the way your little fingers wrapped around my thumb. It was just… amazing! You were so small and so _perfect_. I just… fell in love I guess.”

Grace smiled back at him, broad and white and beautiful and Danny fell in love with her just a little bit more if that was even possible.

Then a little mischief lit up her eye. “And… do you remember learning how to surf with me?”

“Learning how to… you mean me teaching _you_ how to surf?” spluttered Danny in mock indignance.

She laughed, and her laughter was like music. “Okay, Danno. Whatever you want to believe. What about…. Do you remember taking me ice skating when I was a little girl, back in Jersey?”

He grinned, chest now swelling with pride. “Yes. I remember taking you skating. You were fantastic, a natural, just beautiful.”

 “Yeah, right,” she snorted sarcastically in an overtly teenage way, but her dark eyes sparkled with merriment. “Okay, do you remember dressing up like Santa every year?”

“What are you talking about, Monkey?!” he exclaimed. “That _was_ Santa!”

Grace giggled in delight and Danny’s heart started to sing. He laughed with her, long and loud. Then he felt eyes on him and looked round to see Steve watching. He was pretending not to, pretending he was listening to whatever conversation Chin and Lou were having beside him. Caught out, the dark haired man ducked his head apologetically then shrugged with a little half-smile.

Danny raised an eyebrow and grinned at him, gave him a discrete little wave before turning back to his beautiful daughter.

Grace’s smile faded a little. She glanced at him cautiously, side-on. “What about Charlie? Do you remember Charlie being born?”

Danny hesitated, reading the doubt on her face. He could see she wanted to ask more. He’d re-learned the facts of what had happened with Rachel and Charlie but the actual pain that went with it had been lost before. Danny’s wonderful, intelligent daughter needed to know if he was okay with that amongst all the other things that were going on. He met her eye and nodded emphatically. “I do. And it was wonderful too.”

Grace stared at him, chewing on her lip.

He tightened his arm around her. “Gracie, I remember it was… complicated. But I get to remember both of you coming into this world and taking your first breaths and… that’s amazing. And now you’re both _here_ , you’re both giving me another chance to be your daddy even though I behaved badly when I was real sick. I gotta be the luckiest guy in the world. I… I love you. I love both of you.”

And she turned her head, buried it against his shoulder. He could feel her smiling against him. “I love you so much Danno,” she whispered. “I’m really glad you got your memory back.”

He blinked, then realized with a shock that right then, for the very first time, he was glad of it as well. He raised his other arm again, cautious but determined, and pulled her in for another hug. “Yeah, me too. I love you baby, I love you so much,” he whispered, kissing the side of her temple firmly. He inhaled deeply against her hair, drawing in the sweet aromas of vanilla and warm innocence.

He blew out a shaky breath, his eyes fluttering open and there was Steve, watching again. The SEAL had abandoned all pretence and was standing regarding Danny openly bearing a look of warm pride and complete and utter love.

Danny smiled at him shyly, then pressed his head back against his baby girl’s soft hair, sighing with utter contentment.

……………………

Hours later, when everyone else had gone home, Steve and Danny sat alone in the Adirondack chairs watching the sun sink below the horizon, just as they had done so, so many times before through the years.

Danny was still glowing with happiness at the delight his returned memories had brought to Gracie. “I wonder why it all came back,” he murmured, more to himself than anything else.

Steve heard of course. “You smacked your head pretty good in the wreck. I guess that did it.”

Danny chewed on his lip. The wreck was all still so hazy, the last real unknown in his life. It didn’t matter he supposed. He just couldn’t help thinking he was missing something significant.

Steve’s voice cut into his thoughts.

“It’s maybe just as well you don’t remember to be honest. It wasn’t nice in there. You’ve enough going on, buddy,” said the SEAL.

Danny turned to look at him in the fading light. His partner’s pain-filled eyes had gone distant. A visible shudder ran down the dark-haired man’s body. Danny wondered vaguely if there was more to the story of the accident than Steve had let on. Then again, it had sounded bad enough, and Steve had been in there with him, no doubt worried as hell about him. It had to have been a hellish experience.

“You know maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea for you to book yourself in for a few sessions of neurofeedback. You’ve got your own issues, right?” He didn’t mention the things Steve had gone through over Danny, or Freddie, or Steve’s father, or the lingering demon of alcoholism by name. They both knew.

Steve nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

Danny watched his friend’s sombre face for a few beats before snorting with laughter. “Some pair, aren’t we?”

“That we are, Danno, that we are.” Steve replied slowly. He blew out a slow breath. “So… you remember everything, huh?” He said, a sly grin punctuating the shift in his mood.

Danny narrowed his eyes as it dawned on him that his bat-eared partner had to have been eavesdropping or lip-reading or something when he’d been speaking with Grace. “Pretty much,” he agreed with a measure of trepidation.

Steve’s grin grew a little wider. “Do you remember when you met me?”

“Sure. You were an arrogant asshole… but you had your charms I suppose.”

Steve grinned, unrepentant. “Okay. Do you remember… me teaching you to surf?”

Danny’s eyebrows shot up then he pulled the most mocking expression he could muster. “No, I do _not_ remember that because that did not happen, smartass. _Kono_ taught me to surf. Nice try. You taught me how to break my back pushing a clapped out old car up a hill, how about that?”

Steve smiled broadly, then stilled, flicking him a cautious side-on look reminiscent of the one Grace had thrown him earlier on before she asked about Charlie. Danny tensed, looked away into the growing darkness.

“Okay… do you remember coming to rescue me from North Korea?”

“Sure,” Danny replied with a frown. “But I thought we were doing good memories here.”

“Bear with me. And flying to Afghanistan for me?”

Danny nodded, frowning harder.

“Getting me back from Wo Fat the second time, here in Oahu?”

“Yeah,” Danny breathed, shuddering at the memory of Steve so weakened and confused. “I really hope you’re going somewhere with this.”

“I am.” Steve declared. “If you remember those things then I guess you remember I’m not always strong and you’re not always weak. It’s important to me that you know that. We’ve got a partnership thing going on here. Equals.”

Danny let out a long, long breath between pursed lips. So that was Steve’s angle. “Yeah but babe, we’re not talking the same league here. You got a bit beat up a few times, yeah. Me… I mean you _spoon-fed_ me. I was like a freaking baby when you found me.”

“Yeah, so what if I did?” Steve exclaimed defensively. “What if you were like a kid, Danno? Jesus you’d been catatonic for months. And you know what? That first time you let me feed you in the hospital- it was the first time you’d willingly eaten since you’d been found. That’s a fucking good memory for me, D. You trusted me that much even though you had no idea who I was. It felt… it was amazing.  And babe, you came back from that. So do you have any idea how strong that makes you? You’ve always been strong, I’ve always admired you for that.”

Danny turned to stare at him, unwilling to believe he could put a positive spin on any of that. “Okay. I also remember you taking care of me after all the shit with Matty. Covering for me when he disappeared. Then getting him home. Getting _me_ home because I wasn’t good for nothing after shooting Reyes and then looking inside that fucking barrel.”

Steve shook his head. “I wish you hadn’t. But I would have wanted to do the same. Okay. How about this then? I know you never forgot this, but I’m gonna remind you anyway because it matters. Do you remember the only reason I got sober was you? And you kept me going, kept me strong?”

Danny physically winced. “I also nearly drove you to drink again.” He glanced over at Steve, face full of remorse.

“Babe, that so wasn’t your fault,” Steve responded, nothing but compassion showing in his every nuance. “And it didn’t happen, did it?” He huffed out a heavy breath. “Look, we’ve both been through a lot. I just really want to make sure you remember it’s been both ways. Okay? We’ve been partners a lot of years and we’ve both had tough times. This support thing. It’s been both ways. Remember that?”

Steve was staring at Danny in that intense way he had, like his answer was the answer to the meaning of life.

Danny turned the corners of his mouth downwards, then nodded slowly. “Okay.” 

Steve kept right on staring at him, bearing the expression of someone who was trying to do some complicated mental arithmetic . Then the SEAL cleared his throat, sat back in his chair and turned his head away, just a touch. Danny frowned, watching his partner’s hands flex nervously on the arms of his seat before shifting to clasp together loosely in his lap. “Do you remember me saying maybe we could talk about _things_ when you were better?” The dark-haired man asked softly.

Danny spluttered mentally for a moment, because the things Steve was talking about were the things Danny didn’t think he could cope with even now. Flustered as he was, old habits jumped in to cover. “I’m sorry, is this _you_ offering to have a conversation about actual emotions or am I having another freaking breakdown?” he snarked.

“Not funny, Danno,” said Steve with a snort. “And I’m not saying you’re totally better but… you just seem more like… _you_ again, you know? I’m just… I guess I’m wondering where you’re at. In your head. With… you know. No pressure. Just….”

Danny raised a questioning eyebrow and Steve turned his head away, fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair. Danny stared at his profile, feeling that pull of _want_ in his stomach again. Steve McGarrett was a beautiful man and this… this was about the possibility of the two of them being something more than they were. It was about what Danny _wanted_ to be capable of. He should be biting Steve’s hand off to have this conversation but still the fear of going backwards, of summoning dark things to the front of his mind appeared to be proving too much to overcome.

He hesitated in replying, loathe to cut the subject dead. His thoughts danced around the topic, because he had questions aplenty about how the possibility of _more_ had even arisen. “I remember you and me double-dating. Remember that?” he asked, gaze fixed firmly on the side of Steve’s face.

“Of course!” Steve looked down at his clasped hands and smiled, shaking his head. “I spent most of the time talking to you instead of Cath! How I didn’t realize what was going on in my own head I’ll never know.”

Danny snorted with mirth. “I hate to tell you this, but you’ve never exactly been in touch with your emotional side, babe.” He hesitated awkwardly, cleared his throat. “Know what I don’t remember though? I don’t remember you ever telling me you were bisexual.”

Steve turned round to look at him, an almost comical look of surprise on his face. “I’m not.”

“Okaaaay,” Danny said slowly, stomach tying itself in ever more complicated knots. He started frantically replaying snippets of relevant conversation. He couldn’t have misunderstood, could he?

Steve pulled a ridiculous face, a kind of scrunched-up, self-berating affair. He nodded a few times, huffed out a breath.  “Okay I guess strictly I am. But it’s not like that for me. Casual sex- that’s always just been with women, I guess because casual sex is all about _easy_ and with the life I’ve lived casual sex with men would have come with… complications.” He shrugged. “I’ve only been in love a handful of times and then it’s different. If I’m actually in love with someone it’s all about the individual. The body parts are irrelevant. It’s been… maybe half and half.”

Danny blinked, mind searching for instances or conversations he might have forgotten. He came up empty. “That’s… new information. But since I’ve known you….”

“When we met there was already Cath and things got kinda serious there for a while. You remember, you were there. And now there’s you.”

“You… you mean… you don’t mean… you’re in love…?” Danny’s brain stuttered over Steve’s implication.

Steve nodded.

Danny went scarlet and he looked down, fast, ran a hand over his face. He shook his head. “Steve… here’s the thing… I know I’m much better but I don’t know if I’m ever gonna be able to get past what happened _enough_ to be able to…. I mean you should…. You should be getting married to some ninja assassin woman type, like a version of Cath without the disappearing thing, you know? And I would be your best man of course, then you guys could honeymoon in… I don’t know, a yurt in Outer Mongolia or somewhere and start producing lots of ridiculously attractive little ninja babies to whom I would, of course, be Godfather, right?” And yeah, okay, he was babbling, but he meant every word of it, he wanted nothing but the best for Steve no matter what it meant for his own happiness. He looked up, raised an eyebrow.

Steve was staring at him, forehead scrunched up in disdain. “Danny…” he started.

Danny raised his hands in mock horror. “No! Don’t take that away from me. I get to be Godfather, right??”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Yes, Danno. If all that stuff ever happens I promise you would be Godfather.”

“And best man,” Danny pushed, ignoring Steve’s long-suffering tone.

“Of course… but can we stay on topic, please?” Steve sighed impatiently, stress starting to show. “So… where is your head at, Danny? You know where I am. What about you. Just be honest. It’s fine, whatever.”

Danny’s head was pretty much wishing _he_ was in a place where he would be capable of going on a honeymoon with Steve even if it was to a freaking yurt in Outer Mongolia. But it was stupid, the whole thing was stupid and he didn’t want to lead Steve on. “Steve, it’s just, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be intimate like that again. With _anyone._ I know things are getting better but I just have this thing, this barrier I guess. It’s not just you, God only knows I wish I….” He stopped, shook his head, not wanting to muddy the waters with impossibilities.

“What?” Steve pushed. “You wish you _what_?”

“Look, it doesn’t matter, I can’t. And I want you to be happy so you should… go be with someone who isn’t fucked in the head. I can’t be in that sort of relationship. I’m sorry.” He shrugged helplessly. Suddenly he felt the urge to run, desperately wanting to be alone. He was teetering at the edge of some serious self-pity.

Steve stared at him, long and hard, then reached over and took his hand, squeezed it once. “What about _this_ sort of relationship? Can you be in _this_ sort of relationship?”

Danny frowned in confusion, looking from Steve down to their joined hands then back again. “This sorta…? We already _are_ in this sort of relationship. Aren’t we? What are you talking about?”

“Danny,” said Steve, leaning in just a little closer, voice dropping several octaves. “Tell me this. Do you _want_ to be my best man?”

Danny spluttered for a second, so many sarcastic replies on the tip of his tongue. Then he closed his eyes in defeat. “No,” he admitted, quiet and resigned.

“So… tell me what you _want_.”

Danny shook his head slowly, eyes staying firmly closed to the situation. A big thumb started rubbing across his knuckles before finding its way unerringly to his row of fifteen scars. Danny chewed on his lip as the simple repetitive movement automatically soothed him and underlined exactly what he _did_ want, as if he needed reminding. He laughed out loud. “What do I want? I want to be able to offer you _everything,_ okay? But I know I can’t.”

The thumb kept rubbing, undeterred. “What if this is enough for me?” Steve asked quietly.

Danny opened his eyes in disbelief. “What, like a platonic relationship? Are you serious? Like we’re, what, 90 years old or something?”

Steve looked at their joined hands and shrugged, then smiled a big goofy smile.

“You’re a dork. You know that, right?” said Danny, rolling his eyes. He shifted uncomfortably. “Look, uh, here’s the thing. _This…,_ ” he lifted their joined hands a fraction, “is fine and nice and lovely… but I don’t know if I can _ever_ offer you more than… _this_. I can’t promise you that will ever change and I don’t want you to feel obliged to….” He ground to a halt and shrugged, chewing on his bottom lip.

Steve met his gaze, deadly serious. “Danny, listen to me.” He said, voice low and earnest. “I _love_ you. If you feel the same way, _this_ ,” He squeezed Danny’s hand, hard. “This will _always_ be good enough for me.”

Danny giggled, short and sharp, covering frantically as his stomach did that reverse flip flop thing again. “You’re insane. You know that right?”

Steve raised his eyebrows, pushing the question silently.

Danny felt like he was having a weird, out of body experience, because no way was this incredible man offering him… himself like this. Offering to forego sex just to be with him! It was… yeah, incredible was the word. Ridiculous but incredible. His heart was beating like a hummingbird’s and he suddenly felt like a freaking teenage girl high on her first crush, all adoration and nausea.

He blew out a long-suffering sigh for show then shrugged. “OK, I guess… _but_ just until something better comes along.”

“For you?” Steve asked, expression turning blank and unreadable, fast.

Danny screwed up his face, incredulous. “No! For _you_ , you giant doofus. At which point I shall relinquish all extra-curricular hand-holding in favor of trying _yet again_ to impart my wisdom on how to romance a lady with a view to finally getting to be your best man.”

Steve stuck out his bottom lip then nodded, making a poor effort at hiding a growing smile. “OK. Sure Danno. Whatever you say.”

“You really are a dork.”  Danny grumbled. “I’m platonically dating a total dork.” But he tightened his grip on Steve’s big hand. The corners of his mouth twitched. He gave in, smiling into the night, well aware Steve was watching him and grinning like a maniac.

TBC


	14. Raid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> KQ and IC- thank you you long-suffering, demanding enablers.

Steve was fretting and it was manifesting itself as the kind of gruff superiority that left his team rolling their eyes and keeping their distance. Everything had been leading up to this point for months now and tension was running high. He could feel it thrumming in his forehead, sharp and intense.

He checked his watch. 0427 hours. Three minutes to go, three minutes until raids were carried out simultaneously on thirty-seven properties scattered between Oahu, mainland US, the UK, Eastern Europe and South America. Five-0 were in position, ready to hit their own target. They had encircled the upmarket villa in Kailua with HPD and SWAT, hidden by darkness and poised to strike. Thomas and his multi-national gang were doing down. Steve’s adrenaline levels were starting to elevate. He loved that familiar sensation- the slow tingle spreading through his body to his limbs, readying him for deadly action. But there was an edge of something different this time, an edge of unfamiliar anxiety.

The hit was routine, really, and with the level of preparation that had been involved there was little chance of unexpected complications. They had gone over the schematics of the building in detail, had established the presence and location of their target based on surveillance and current heat signatures. The entry strategy was in solid and in place. That wasn’t what had Steve worried, not at all.

He glanced over at one of the nearby dark figures, carefully concealed in the shadows. The man was crouched behind a large concrete planter, muzzle of his AK-47 aimed steadily at the house. He appeared focused and still, every inch the seasoned professional. Steve’s nostrils flared as he pushed down another stomach-churning spike of concern, because that figure was _Danny_.

Yes, Danny was signed back on full duties. Sixteen weeks after the accident, his arm was healed and strong, his psyche eval had been passed with flying colors. Yes, on paper he was more than capable of taking part in a simple raid. It should be just another one to add to the list of literally hundreds he had been involved with before. And yes, Danny _wanted_ to be here, determined to get back in the thick of things, to have no allowances made for him at work.

But it was _Danny._ It was the man Steve loved completely and knew inside out. And Steve knew the blond man still had one lingering fear- that he wasn’t really fixed. An unforeseen trigger might be pulled, might send him spiralling back into hell again.

And Steve was scared he might be right. He wanted nothing more than to protect him from that very possibility.

That was the very the reason the two men held each other close at night and shared chaste kisses, but that was all. That most probably would _always_ be all. Steve was fine with that. Waking up with Danny in his arms and running his fingers gently through untamed blond hair was the most wonderful feeling in the world. Exchanging good-natured barbs over breakfast as their bare toes rubbed and curled together beneath the table felt right and good. Steve was happy in ways he had never before thought possible. What they had was enough. _More_ than enough, it was amazing.

Steve would never dream of pressing for more, no matter what his body tried to tell him it would like to do to the wonderfully attractive man who shared his bed. It just couldn’t happen. He didn’t even think Danny ever got hard- he kept it well hidden if he did. And Steve was careful to hide his own arousal in case Danny felt pressurised to try to do more than he was able. Or even worse, in case knowing there was an erection in his airspace sucked him into a freaking flashback. Steve simply dealt with it himself, just another part of his bedtime routine. It was fine.

Steve was so, so careful around Danny… yet here they were, about to launch an assault on a house full of armed, violent men who had trafficked other human beings for money. Forced them into prostitution. _Raped_ them. Turned them into victims just like Danny had been. Every instinct screamed at Steve to protect his partner from them, from this whole damn case. But he couldn’t.

Steve was struggling with it.

He’d done what he could- stacked the odds in their favor on the sly. Danny would kill him for making allowances if he knew, irrespective of his own fears. But Steve had to at least _try_ to shelter him from the worst of things, just for a while. Just until more time had passed and both of their confidence had grown.

It wasn’t too obvious what he’d done on the face of it. The hit he had selected for his own team was legitimate and high profile- it was Thomas’ main residence after all. But that wasn’t the real reason he had chosen it. It was clean- that was the important bit. During the four months of surveillance there had been no indication of anything illegal coming here- arms, drugs or _people_. That was key. He didn’t want Danny to have to deal first hand with Thomas’ victims. Not after what had happened when he’d simply seen the _photo_ of just one of them- that freaking photo of the poor trafficked girl that had set Danny off on the worst flashback Steve had ever see him suffer.

No, this was safer. Just bad guys to take down, files to gather up. It should be straightforward and not too messy. Their targets were Thomas himself, five of his entourage, and the records he kept- paper files and hard-drives. It should be okay. It _would_ be okay, he decided determinedly.

He and Danny were going for Thomas, of course. That should be satisfying and relatively safe. It would be great in fact. He salivated at the thought of getting to lay hands on the bastard. He hoped the man would resist, just a bit. A little rough justice for his crimes, prior to the court systems meting out something more legally appropriate, would be hugely satisfying. And if they were forced to shoot him? It would be no great loss to humanity.

The one area he would have to watch would be the access Danny had to Thomas’ files. He would need to keep him away until he had a chance to vet them himself, just in case they included photos of the ‘merchandise’ on offer. No way, no _way_ was Steve going to allow Danny to see something like that in an uncontrolled environment. Not yet, it was just too soon.

Steve licked his lips nervously, eyes still lingering on his partner. Then the dark figure moved. Steve couldn’t make out Danny’s features, but he read the abrupt quirk of his head with ease. _Concentrate you dork. I’m okay._

Steve shook himself, because Danny was right, of course he was right. Steve couldn’t afford to risk fucking up by letting himself be distracted like this. He had his plan, if he stuck to it everything would be fine. He forcibly pushed his concerns over his partner to the back of his mind out of necessity, switching to mission-setting.  

He glanced at his watch again. 0429 hours. “One minute,” he whispered tersely, depressing the transmit button his radio as he spoke.

He watched the seconds tick away, felt his heartbeat hammer faster in anticipation as they did. Then it was a hushed countdown from ten and “ _Go, go, go_!”

Everything clicked into familiar, adrenaline-fueled, focused intensity. They ran, closing in on the house as silently as they could. Danny was on his right flank, just a few steps behind, covering Steve’s back as he always did.

They hit the house in perfect sync with the rest of the assembled team, the entrance doors all crashing in together. All hell broke loose as the occupants of the house realized what was happening a little too late and tried to fight back furiously.

There was an explosion of chaos. Aggressive shouting, the rat-tat-tat of automatic gun fire, the explosive impact of Five-0’s flash-bangs. Shouts of pain and alarm, more crashing doors. The clinging stench of cordite and blood. Smoke alarms blared and Thomas’ fuck off big Rottweiler barked furiously then yelped, hopefully marking the moment the dog handler who’d been poised with pole and noose completed his designated task and got the thing under control. 

The partners ran through it all, making straight for Thomas’ office on the second floor. The noise of Thomas’ men and their frantic resistance died away pretty much at the same moment as Steve kicked the office door in, splintered wood flying left and right. And there he was, Miles Thomas, right there in front of them, cowering and pathetic, expensive shirt riding up to reveal the mottled skin of his middle-aged paunch.

Steve and Danny launched themselves, took him down to his knees between them in a well-practiced move. He didn’t even try to resist, infuriatingly, and Steve growled in annoyance at the anti-climax. Then Danny was the one cuffing the waste of skin, Thomas’ squeal indicating he’d hit that perfect balance where the cuffs would fucking hurt but cause no significant damage. It was better treatment than the man deserved.

As they watched HPD drag him away, Steve blew out a slow, controlled breath. It had all gone to plan, perfectly, all of it. In barely a blink of an eye utter chaos had mushroomed then been pulled back into tightly controlled order. All the bad guys were subdued, the house was cleared. No one had been killed, no one had even been badly injured. It was a complete success. They had done it.

Steve’s radio barked in his ear, reporting back similar successes at the other targets on Oahu.

It felt too easy. An uneasy feeling prickled the back of Steve’s neck, like he was missing something important. He glanced at Danny, saw just the same feeling reflected in those clear blue eyes. Without a word exchanged, they started moving side by side, clearing the house together all over again. Two pair of blue eyes scanned for _something,_ something that had been missed. They searched, bypassing the various officers who were bustling around, already engaged in evidence recording and gathering.

It wasn’t until they reached the basement that the shit hit the fan. Danny froze abruptly as he came off the bottom step.  Steve turned to look at him. The blond man was inhaling deeply, disbelief on his face.

“What is it babe?” Steve asked, looking around, puzzled. The basement looked unremarkable- just a few bits of furniture in storage, that was it.

Danny shook his head. “Do you smell that? There’s something… someone….” He cleared his throat and he sounded freaking nervous as hell.

He moved away, silent, started yanking at furniture, hauling it away from the wall, upending it.

Steve moved with him, totally confused, ducking back to avoid being hit by an over-turned wardrobe. He was trying to catch whatever scent had set Danny off. It smelled musty, rank. Dirty. Just like a basement, really.

He didn’t catch the first edge of urine and shit in the air until the exact moment that Danny pulled over the big oak bookshelf with a clatter and revealed the concealed fucking door.

They stood and stared, because it shouldn’t be there, it hadn’t been on the plans. Thomas must have added it. It was metal, bolted on the outside. Like a cell. Why would he…? Then it all came together in Steve’s head and he grabbed Danny just in time to stop him from being the one to open the door. He pushed the blond man back, muscled his way in front of him. “No! Let me. Just… let me.”

Steve slid the bolt back with a clang and pushed the metal door inwards, gun drawn.

And as the door swung open the stench hit him full-frontal and he reeled in disgust, then froze in utter horror. This should not be here. The house was supposed to be _clean_. But there it was- a prison cell, all stone and metal and no windows. A filthy floor, the stone barely visible beneath the dirt. And lying there was what had to be Thomas’ personal entertainment. Beautiful eyes looked up at him, terrified and defeated all at the same time. Steve gasped in shocked disbelief. It was that woman, that _same_ poor woman, the woman from the photo Joe had sent him. The woman he had assumed would be dead.

She was lying on the ground, her hands tied behind her back, naked and so painfully thin. The fact she’d been raped was inescapable, dried blood encrusting the skin of her bruised thighs.

It was the live version of that fucking photo- the very same photo that had thrown Danny into a flashback so intense he had punched Steve. The photo that Danny had looked at and seen not this poor trafficked girl from fuck-knows-where, but the woman who had been tortured and murdered in front of him. The photo that had thrust him back in time to the worst moment of his life.

And then Steve remembered to panic because Danny was _still right behind him_.

He spun around. “Danny, don’t look, please don’t look!” he hissed, a tremor in his voice.

But Danny had already seen. His blue eyes were wide with shock, fixed on the woman. Steve grabbed at him, gripping his shoulders, trying to manhandle him away, like that would change anything. As though he could turn back time and stop his partner from ever having laid eyes on this real-time reminder of the worst moment of his life.

Danny shook him off. Steve made a last effort to grab at him, but Danny pushed him back determinedly. And then things went even more bizarre, because Danny ran the _wrong way_. He was shoving past Steve, running _towards_ the girl. And Steve’s jaw dropped at what he was seeing, because Danny wasn’t freaking out. He was barking instructions into his radio, demanding paramedics. He was dropping to his knees on that filthy floor beside the girl. He pulled out his pocket knife, cut her bonds, then tore off his vest and threw it aside. He pulled off his shirt and laid it over her.

Steve stood, jaw still hanging in shock, trying to catch up. He watched uselessly as Danny bent low down beside the woman, so careful not to touch her and began to speak in a low voice.

“Hey honey,” Danny was whispering. “We’re cops. You’re safe now. No one’s gonna hurt you again. You’re safe, I promise.”

And those haunted eyes blinked, shifted and focused on him. They filled with grateful tears.

Steve shook his head in disbelief. His partner was on his knees in a cell like his own cell had been, comforting a woman who’d been imprisoned and raped like he had been. Like the girl who had haunted his dreams had been. And he was in control, all big-hearted cop, not panicking victim.

It was like Steve’s world had been black and white without him ever having realized it and it had just gone 3D technicolor. Danny was okay. _Danny was okay_. Steve started to breathe again, heart still thundering in his ears. His face flushed red as total relief swept through him. Relief not just for that moment but for a tension that had been underlying everything for nearly three years. Danny was okay. He’d been thrust into the worst situation possible, no warning at all, and he was _okay_. He was coping. He was handling the whole thing better than Steve was.

It didn’t feel real. It was incredible. Steve felt like he was trapped in some surreal dream where none of the terrible shit had ever happened to them and everything was catch-the-bad-guys fine and fantastic.

Steve let himself be pushed aside by paramedics, let himself watch as they checked the woman over gently, loaded her onto the gurney and carried her out, Danny following close behind.

Danny caught his eye as he walked past. Steve opened his mouth to say “You okay?” or “I love you so much baby,” or “you’re incredible,” or something equally irrelevant and unhelpful. But Danny got there first and few a minute it was pretty hazy who was actually in charge. “Steve, you okay?” he asked.

That was totally back to front, but Steve nodded dumbly.

Danny looked at him searchingly before nodding back. “Okay. Get crime lab in here first, okay? And we need a female officer to go with her, I want to… but that would be more appropriate- can you find Davis? She’s good. I’ll stay with her till you find Davis. And we’re gonna need a rape kit, yeah? I’ll be back.” And then he was gone.

Steve was left standing, blinking in confusion. He shook himself, because he was supposed to be in charge here. He needed to go after Danny, he couldn’t deny himself that, but there were things he had to do first. He had to ensure everything was being done right. Danny’s tasks were first and he ticked them off rapidly with a flurry of phone calls, then went in search of his team.

He found Chin, Lou and Kono bagging up evidence in Thomas’ office.

“Boss, hey,” said Kono when she saw him. “HPD just took the last of the perps away. We did good, right?”

Steve smiled and nodded. “We sure did.”

“We heard about the girl,” Lou cut in. “How’s she doing?”

Steve shrugged. “The paramedics are with her. She looked… yeah, she’d been sexually assaulted for sure. But I couldn’t see any obvious injuries beyond that. That’s something, right? I just can’t believe we found her. When I saw that photo… I assumed she would be long gone by now, you know? I know she’ll have been through a lot but…”

Lou stepped over, patted him on the back solidly. “Yeah. She’s alive and she’s safe now. We’ll do everything we can for her.”

Steve nodded in agreement. She would have a long road in front of her but Steve was determined to see to it that she had every bit of help available. He’d pay for her to go to Dr Miller personally if he had to. He would fly her back to her family or fly them here for her. Maybe they’d be as astonished as he was she was alive. It was all just unbelievable.

Chin laid a gammex-gloved hand on his shoulder. “Is Danny okay? Did he see her?”

Steve looked around, saw all three team member staring at him, concern written all over their faces. He snorted, realizing his discrete attempts to protect Danny maybe hadn’t been that discrete. They all understood. All knew the potential ramifications of what had just happened. They all loved Danny and wanted him to be okay.

Steve smiled fondly at them, the corners of his eyes crinkling up as his pride and relief shone through for all to see. “He found her and he… he was fucking fantastic,” he declared. “He was… just fucking fantastic! You should have seen him….”

The relief in the room was palpable, held breaths were released, glances exchanged, shoulders clapped. And maybe Steve’s tone had been a touch beyond brotherly relief and professional appreciation because Kono leaned over to whisper in his ear, faux-conspiratorially because the others could hear just fine and she clearly knew it. “I take it love is in the air, boss?”

“What? I don’t know what you’re…” Steve spluttered, then stopped and looked down. He grinned helplessly at his shoes and shrugged. They all knew that too, of course. For all he and Danny had been discrete, their team were the best detectives around.

Chin patted him on the back sympathetically. “It’s fine, we’re all right behind you both. The two of you deserve a bit of happiness.”

He looked around at the happy faces of his ohana and nodded gratefully, feeling overwhelmed. He was so lucky, so fucking lucky with the people he had in his life. He felt high, buzzing like he’d just ripped the biggest freaking wave on Pipeline, everyone he’d ever known watching and cheering. He couldn’t wait until he and Danny were alone again. He was so freaking proud of him he thought he might explode. He yearned to touch, to plant a soft kiss on his partner’s rough face.

“You should go find him though,” said Chin. “We’re good here, okay? We’ve got this. You go look after him. Take him home, make sure he’s _really_ okay. It might hit him yet with the adrenaline dump. You know how it works.”

That simple observation yanked Steve back to reality with a harsh thump. Somewhere along the way he’d had made an assumption he shouldn’t have. Danny had dealt with everything fine. But Chin was totally right- that didn’t mean he _was_ fine. Suddenly Steve was uneasy as hell. He needed to be with Danny right away.

Barking out hurried goodbyes, he turned and stalked out in search of that familiar blond hair, that upright figure.

He spotted the ambulance out the front of the house before he found his partner and figured he must still be with the girl. He stalked over. The back doors were closed but the engine wasn’t running- he figured they must still be assessing the girl before taking her to hospital. He knocked on the door, clearing his throat and one door cracked open. Officer Davis stuck her head out.

“Hey,” he said. “She okay?”

She bit her lip before she replied and peered around worriedly, kicking his uneasiness up a couple of gears. “Yeah. She’s not hurt too bad, they think. She’s passed out but they think she’s just totally exhausted. They’re just getting their stuff cleared away- we’re about to head to Tripler.”

Steve nodded. “Okay. Where’s Detective Williams? He in there with you?”

Now the worry on her face became outright concern and Steve’s stomach clenched into a tight knot.

“He ran off,” she said. “I assumed he was going to find you but….”

“What the hell do you mean he ran off?!” Steve barked. Chin’s words replayed in head and he cursed. He should have stayed with him, what had he been _thinking_?

She shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know. He was talking to her when I got here. She grabbed his hand and he held it and he seemed okay. Then when she passed out he just… he went kind of weird. He was just staring at her hand and he went kind of pale and sweaty. I thought he maybe wasn’t feeling well. I’m sorry, I should have radioed you but I just assumed….”

Steve pressed the heel of his hand to his head, brain denying what he was hearing. And then it all clicked into place and everything came crashing down around his ears.

Danny had held the girl’s hand as she’d passed out. Just like he’d held the hand of the freaking girl who was murdered in Colombia as she died and… _fuck_ , how had he not seen this coming? How could he let this happen? He should never have let Danny be the one to stay with her, he should have been happy that Danny had coped with finding her and stopped things there. Made him take a step back. Insisted.

“No, no, no. _Fuck_!” He swore venomously, pointlessly, at his own stupidity. “Shit. _Shit._ When? When did he go? _”_

Officer Davis was looking at him wide-eyed, plainly terrified she’d done something wrong but he didn’t even care, it didn’t register.

“Just a few minutes ago,” she rasped.

Steve turned and ran without another word. He ran, looking around frantically in the pink Hawaiian dawn, yelling Danny’s name, desperate. He kept right on going, sprinting out of the grounds of the house and around the corner. He ran all the way to the spot where Danny had parked up his brand new Camaro hours earlier, the metallic gray, all mod cons, flying-machine of a car that the two men had already started to bicker over.

It was gone, a double line of rubber marking the asphalt where it had wheel-spun away.

“Fuck. Fuck,” Steve muttered. Then he was yelling at the top of his voice. “ _FUCK!!_ _NO!! DANNY!!!_ ” 

He stood there in the resounding silence that followed, breathing hard. Then nausea hit him. He sagged, bending over sharply with his hands on his knees.

He should never have let Danny come. Never.

TBC

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a bit of a mean end. Might post the last chapter tonight if anyone's interested. I'll have to apologize in advance- there's a rookie attempt at porn in it. Sigh.


	15. Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, here, have the last chapter. Thank you all for the lovely comments, kudos etc. Really appreciate the support. And thank you KQ for the high speed beta and IC for the fab support.
> 
> Errr. OK. Yes, rookie porn attempt ahead. *Coughs*

Danny heard the sirens approaching way before his partner sprinted over to him. He hung his head down, an edge of shame creeping in for having run the way he did. His hands were clasped loosely together, elbows resting on his knees as he sat hunched over on the old wooden bench in the early morning sunshine. A leaf blew by him, swirling in the gentle breeze and he followed its erratic movements with tired eyes.

Steve’s footsteps slowed and lightened as he came closer, like he was approaching a freaking startled animal or something.

“Hey, buddy. You okay?” came the hesitant question.

Danny wasn’t entirely sure how to answer that. “Sure,” he said simply.

The footsteps came closer, then Steve was sinking down at the opposite end of the bench, close but not too close. He was being so careful just like he always was, and suddenly Danny wanted to scream. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, pushed the urge away.

“Danny,” said Steve cautiously, voice rough with stress and exhaustion. “Why are we here?”

“I’m sorry, I’m okay. I just had to….” Danny shook his head slowly, then pointed at the headstone of the nearest grave. It was new and white and beautiful. The inscription at the top: _Marlene White and her daughter Gillian. Taken from us tragically but always together in each other’s loving arms._

He could feel Steve tense three clear feet away. “Fuck!” the dark haired man exclaimed. “You remembered?”

Danny turned to look at him in surprise, taking in the lines of stress, the haggard look on his partner’s handsome face for the first time. He choked out a humorless laugh. “You knew?”

Steve shook his head emphatically. “No, I didn’t know. I suspected. I saw the child’s body coming out when I first got there. I knew she’d died right beside where you were trapped. I knew you’d seen her name in the paper and it had affected you. But I also knew you didn’t really remember what had happened and I thought… I just didn't know what to think. Maybe I should have said something, I’m sorry if I was wrong on that.”

“No! No,” Danny objected. “You did the right thing. I couldn’t have coped with this before, no way. Jesus, it’s bad enough now.” He hung his head again.

Steve slid a little closer, reached to place a hand on Danny’s knee. “You wanna talk about it?”

Danny placed his hand right over Steve’s, interlaced their fingers. He sighed deeply, feeling exhausted and numb. “I don’t know what to say. The little girl died, Steve. I couldn’t help her. I just held her hand and she died. It was shit. I guess I flipped out. It brought everything back.” He shook his head sadly, looked over at Steve with pain-filled eyes. “And I was sitting in the ambulance back there at Thomas’ place and… when that woman passed out something clicked. I just remembered. I remembered Gillian. I’m sorry I ran, I just… I saw in the paper weeks ago she was gonna be _here_. I thought it was sad, but…. Then when I _remembered_ her I guess I just had to be here. Say goodbye or something. I should have come found you first, I just… I guess I was pretty shaken up. I wasn’t thinking that clearly for a while there.”

Steve turned his hand over and grabbed Danny’s, holding it tight. “You don’t have to apologise. Ever. It’s like I keep telling you, it’s okay for you not to be okay. You do what you need to do, and it’s fine.”

Danny shook his head. “But I _am_ okay. I think I’m okay, anyway. Is that wrong? I guess I just think… she had her whole life ahead of her, you know? And now she doesn’t. I wish I could have helped her.”

“Babe, there was nothing you could have done. You mustn’t feel guilty.”

“I know that. This isn’t… _that_. I don’t know if it’s the brain zapping, or just whatever, but I know that. This is past. It’s over. I remember being trapped now, I remember being scared, but that’s okay. And I know I did the only things I could- I held her hand and I talked to her. That’s something right? She didn’t die alone?” His breath hitched at that, a tear running down his cheek for the little girl who had died too young.

Steve made a move like he was gonna grab him and hug him but Danny didn’t want that, not yet. He held up his hand. “I’m okay. Really. It’s just so sad. She sounded so scared. And that was it, that was the end of her life. It was stolen from her.” Another tear fell, wet and salty where it crossed his lips. He licked it away.

“What do you need, babe?” said Steve. “What can I do?”

A million thoughts went through his head, then he squeezed Steve’s hand tight, rubbed his thumb over his partner’s knuckles. Steve squeezed right back.

“What do I need? I need to know the girl from the basement is gonna be okay, that’s first.”

“Well I can give you an update on that," Steve replied quickly, "I heard back from Davis while Chin was pinging your location.”

Danny rolled his eyes at that, but he said nothing. What else could he have expected? “Yeah? How’s she doing?”

“She’s not badly hurt. She’s traumatized. We’re gonna make sure she gets the right help, okay? We’re pretty well-versed in dealing with that kind of thing. Right?” Steve smiled a wry smile.

“Right.” Danny dipped his head, smiled at the ground mirthlessly.

Steve blew out a long, slow breath. “What else, babe? Anything you need. I mean it.”

Danny shook his head slowly. “You know what? Life is a bastard. It’s unfair and it’s heart-breaking. That’s never gonna change, there will always be _something._ That little girl… she never even got the chance to grow up, get a job, fall in love, have kids. All the usual shit. Me? I’m lucky. I have all of those things but I’m an idiot. I’m here and I’m alive right now and really I’m okay. But I’m still holding back from what I really want, just because I’m _scared_. What the hell is that about?” 

“But D after everything you’ve been through it’s okay to…” Steve began.

“No!” Danny cut in. “It’s not, it’s not okay. Not any more.” He shook his head, sticking out his bottom lip and he read the words on the headstone again. He shook his head slowly. “You know what, this ‘relationship’.” He gave Steve’s hand a quick squeeze and snorted in derision. “You said it was ‘good enough’ for you.”

“Yes, and I meant it. I love you.”

Now Danny was shaking his head, _hard_. “Well, it’s not good enough for me. Not any more.”

He felt Steve tense from head to foot, felt him tighten his grip like Danny was about to fall over a cliff. “What are you… do you want to break up? Is that what you’re saying?” The words were choked out.

Danny’s stomach lurched violently. He turned round to face his partner. “No. No! That’s not what I meant!” he said hurriedly. “I don’t really know how to explain what I mean. Look, I’ve got so much- I’ve got a beautiful family. Great friends. A job that means something. And I’ve got this amazing guy who’s kind of a whack job but, you know, he loves me. And what’s holding me back from having a normal relationship with him? Fear. That’s it. Not any more, Steve. I don’t want ‘good enough’. I want _everything.”_

Steve was staring at him, jaw hanging lax, plainly not quite believing that he was understanding Danny right.

Danny sighed deeply. “You know what, I’m beat. We’ve been up the whole night. Can we go home? I know there’s stuff to do with Thomas, but… I just want to go home.”

Steve nodded and stood, holding out his hand to pull Danny to his feet.

As they walked away together, Danny turned and glanced back at the headstone. He shook his head. He wasn’t going to let what had happened to him hold him back. Not any more. The last thing he could do to remember that little girl was to _live_.

……………………………

As soon as they stepped through Steve’s front door, Danny made it his mission to go with the moment just in case his resolve weakened. To show Steve _exactly_ what he had meant. He grabbed his partner by the shoulders as he locked the door behind them, spun him round and pinned him up against the wall.

He cupped the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss just like he had that stupid time before, but this time was different. This time he _really_ wanted it. He _needed_ it.

Steve didn’t fight him. He ducked his head and met his hungry lips without hesitation, kissing and biting and licking. But he was holding back, he was tense as hell, blatantly waiting for it all to go to shit. Danny understood. There was nothing Danny could do but _show_ him it was okay. He grabbed Steve by the wrist and all but dragged him towards the stairs and up without further preamble, before the taller man could have time to stop or think or object.

They stumbled into the bedroom and pulled off each other’s clothes in a haze of lust, falling into their wide bed and touching and kissing like they’d been doing it all their lives. Danny steeled himself, reached down between them and rubbed his hand over Steve’s hardening cock.

Steve gasped in his mouth, like that wasn’t what he’d been expecting at all. He jerked back leaving Danny blinking in surprise.

“Wait!” Steve choked out, pushing himself up on one elbow. “Wait. We should talk.”

Fuck. Yeah, okay it had been too easy up to that point.

“You wanna talk?” Danny rasped back at him. “I want you, okay? I want you to fuck me.” He shivered as that request left his mouth for the first time in his whole life, closeted desires and long-standing fears battling each other all the way to the surface and leaving him hot and trembling, body confused about what his mind wanted.

Steve shook his head, and his eyes were full of doubt and annoyance, most likely at himself for allowing things to go this far. “Danny, I’m all for… doing more. But we gotta take baby steps, we gotta build up to anything like that over time. And it doesn’t matter a crap to me if we don’t get there, you know that. Can we just slow this down?”

“Steve, just listen to me,” Danny said, “I don’t wanna slow down. I’m tired, okay? And I’m as ready as I’m gonna get. I’m okay. The stuff that happened… it’s really behind me, it's in the past. I know that for sure now- I was fine when we found that girl, wasn't I? I managed fine today.”

Steve raised his eyebrows and Danny looked away, rolling onto his back and staring at the ceiling. “Okay, I was _nearly_ fine, but that was different. You know that was different. And that’s it- there’s no more blanks left in my head, there’s no more… buried demons or whatever. I remember everything and I can think about all of it, I can talk about all of it. It's shit but it's over. I’m _okay_ now.”

He turned his head to look at Steve again. “I _love_ you. I want everything- I meant that. I want a proper, functional, access-all-areas relationship with you. I don’t want you to feel like you have to be careful around me any more. How you touch me or what you say, or what I see.” He snorted. “Don’t think I don’t know what you tried to pull with that raid.”

Steve had the audacity to laugh at him, but the compassion on his face went some way to tempering the effect. “Danny I hear what you’re saying but _look at you_ \- you’re shaking. You’re _scared_ and all we were doing was kissing.” Steve sat up, slid back until he was propped against the headboard. “No, I’m sorry but it’s not gonna happen. I’m not gonna do it. Not like this.”

Danny put his hand over his face for a moment, self-doubt creeping in. But then he shook his head stubbornly. He shuffled up beside Steve, sitting shoulder to shoulder with him, pulling the covers self-consciously up around his chest.

“Okay. Look,” he said, trying really hard to keep his voice even. “Yes, I admit it, I’m scared, okay? I'm scared it's gonna hurt. I'm scared it might be the one thing left that could bring things back. But here’s the thing- that's never gonna change until I'm proved wrong.  I’m _always_ gonna be scared of this the first time we do it. It doesn’t matter if we build up to it slowly or jump in both feet. We could wait a hundred years and I’d still be shit scared of doing it.  I don’t want to be scared anymore and the only way I can see to get there is to _do_ it and for it to be… okay. Do you understand me?” He looked over at his partner who was clenching and unclenching his jaw at a rate of knots.

Steve shook his head. “Danny, this is crazy.”

“No, it’s not,” he shook his head emphatically. “This is me actually knowing what I want! And I want _you_. Now. I need you to show me it’s okay. You said you could, remember?”

Steve turned to face him, and there was an edge of desperation in his eye. “But what if it triggers you?” he said, soft, almost apologetic.

Danny realized with a start that his partner was shaking too. Then he understood. He knew what the problem had become. “You’re scared too, aren’t you?” he whispered.

The slate blue eyes were shining bright and now they started to fill. “Can you blame me?! I _love_ you. I don’t want to be the one who hurts you, the one who reminds you of what they did and sets you back when you’re doing so good.” A lone tear slid down Steve’s cheek. “What’s wrong with what we’ve got, Danno?”

Danny watched the tear roll downwards, stunned. But he was determined. This was _right,_ for _both_ of them. They had to get past this and there was no easy way, no shortcut. “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing whatsoever. But it could be _more_. I meant it- I want everything. I don’t want what we’ve been through to stand between us any more. With you I don’t want what we have to be good enough, I want it to be fucking amazing. With you I’m brave enough to try. You and me babe, together. We can face anything, right?”

Steve stared at him, eyes glassy and so full of conflict, full of love. He reached out and touched Danny’s cheek, ran his thumb down that long scar. He chuffed out a watery laugh. “You wanna do me instead? How about that?”

Danny rolled his eyes. “Are you serious? I give you that whole speech and you come out with that? You really are a doofus. Naturally that’s high on the list of the things I want to be able to do with you babe, believe me. But _this_ is the thing that’s gonna hang over me and hold me back. Please. I really think I'm ready. I think my head is fixed. I think that fucker Miller cracked it, goddamn it! And okay, I'm scared that I'm wrong but... yeah, I'm ready to try. I trust you Steve. Please. I need to do this. Will you do this for me?”

Steve’s eyes were searching his now and he stared right back, trying to get through to him, trying to convey just how much this meant to him. Convey the depth of his resolve.

Then Steve was sliding closer. He leaned in, pressed his forehead against Danny’s, one hand running up and down the arm which had been so badly broken. They both let out a breath, the conflict all but forgotten as they sat there, sharing each other’s air. It was just _them_ and so intimate and private. It felt so _safe_.

Steve must have felt it too. His gaze dropped to Danny’s mouth, then leaned in and kissed him on the lips, soft and sweet. “Okay,” he breathed. “You tell me to stop if anything gets too much though. Okay? Promise me.”

When Danny nodded, Steve raised a hand to his cheek and pressed another gentle, chaste kiss to his mouth. He pressed again, pushing a little harder, this time slipping his tongue between Danny’s lips and asking silently for entry. Danny complied without hesitation, opening his mouth with a tremulous sigh. Steve lapped into it, teasing and exploring, emitting a soft groan as he did which travelled straight to Danny’s cock and made it throb.

Then everything went weird. It was like a dream. A _good_ dream, just not quite real. Like he was watching himself with this amazing guy from a distance. And maybe his head was doing a thing out of habit- that de-personalizing trick. Maybe a little self-preservation had crept in. He decided to go with it, forgo any pinching of himself meantime because yeah- scary as hell otherwise for all his resolve.

He watched himself as Steve, still kissing him soft and sweet, guided him onto his back. A big hand slid down to his thigh. It settled on the inside and pressed gently in a silent request. He saw himself comply without hesitation, spread his legs wide and lift his knees like he wasn’t scared at all, like he did this kind of thing all the time.

Steve moved then, smooth and graceful as a cat. He reached into a drawer in his bedside table and pulled out a tube of slick Danny simply hadn’t known was there, then shifted until he was crouched between those open legs. He looked like the centerfold from the hottest magazine, all muscles and tattoos. And if he still had misgivings his cock plainly wasn't sharing them because it was hard as a rock and weeping with need, and Danny wasn’t going to look at it properly, not yet, not even in his happy, dream-like state.

The SEAL stilled, then just _stared_. He ran hooded eyes down Danny’s body, intense gaze laden with desire. It made Danny shiver like the most sensual of caresses and his cock twitched into life without even being touched. He didn’t get hard often, it had too many associations, but this… it was hot. Really hot.

Danny exhaled shakily.

Then Steve began to move. He leant over Danny, planting a hand on either side of him, then ducked down. He kissed Danny's cheek, then his neck, sucking and pulling at the skin just right. Then he worked slowly downwards, his course erratic. Danny realized with a jolt that Steve's lips were tracing every scar he could find almost as though he was trying to over-write all the bad things that had happened to him, mark his territory, claim his partner's body as his own. The silver bite marks on his shoulders, the slashes on his chest and his arms. His hand. The fading lines that represented his latest brush with death. Steve shied from none of it, nothing turning off his passion and Danny felt all that love seeping right through to his soul and he soaked it all up.

Apparently satisfied, Steve began to show off the talents he kept hidden for so many years and wasn’t that a deep dark sin against sex. Steve launched an attack on Danny's erogenous zones, wet mouth and skillful tongue nibbling and licking, searching out each nipple in turn before continuing southwards. He kissed a trail of fire excruciatingly slowly down Danny’s flat belly and around the curve of his hip, then he went for it, no hesitation. He took Danny’s semi-hard dick in his mouth and sucked gently, cheeks hollowed, tongue playing around the head. Danny moaned as his cock filled inside Steve’s clever mouth. It was like Steve could just read Danny’s body, like he had a map to every nerve ending, a cheat sheet for turning him on. Danny let his eyes fall shut, let himself get lost in the raw sensations of this five star wet dream.

Then one slicked up finger slid between Danny's buttocks and rubbed gently over and around his hole, pressing slightly harder each time. The first time the tip went in, Danny gasped. Steve just sucked harder with that hot, sloppy mouth. The finger pushed in further and started to move, pressing unerringly against Danny’s prostate. Danny cried out in surprise at the intensity of the feeling. He felt Steve smile around him as he slid his mouth up and down. It felt fucking amazing, and it was getting more and more intense with each passing second. Steve seemed able to read his every tell and moved faster, more insistently, gave him everything he could take.

Danny was panting now, he could feel his orgasm building already. Instinct told him to thrust into that wet mouth and his feet shifted on the bed, scrambling for purchase. He moved his hips as best as he could and Steve took it, let him do it, pushing his finger in harder to match Danny’s thrusts.

Steve worked ruthlessly between Danny’s legs all the while, adding slick, adding fingers, without ever breaking rhythm, stretching Danny out. It burned a little and should have been weird at the very least, if not terrifying… but it was just hot as fuck. Then the SEAL moaned enthusiastically. The vibrations travelled to Danny’s balls and God he was so close, like a freaking horny teenager.

He needed Steve to stop or he would never last. He flapped uselessly at Steve’s shoulders, trying to get his attention. Steve fucking knew, he knew exactly what he was doing. Suddenly all those sensations stopped and Steve was rising up over him, skin sliding smoothly over his, slick with sweat. The dark-haired man ducked his head down and caught Danny’s mouth in an electric kiss, love and desire radiating from him. Danny wanted him, God Danny _wanted_ him. He put his arms up, wrapped them around the bigger man’s shoulders, fingers digging in to hard muscle.

Steve was panting hard, moisture glistening on his lips and his chin. He looked deep into Danny’s eyes. “Babe, you’re ready, okay? But I’d rather keep doing what I’m doing. Let me finish you like that. Just this once, yeah? It’ll be good, I promise.” Steve almost sounded like he was pleading with him.

Danny shook his head. He pulled Steve in closer and kissed him hard, then wrapped his legs around those slim hips and pulled them in towards him. He could finally feel that hard dick against him, rubbing maddeningly against his own and that was fine because it was Steve. It wasn’t scary. It filled him with lust. He thrust his hips upwards, grinding against him.

Steve moaned reflexively, biting his lip. He nodded jerkily in understanding. “Okay. Okay. Got you.”

And Steve would do anything for him, always had been willing to do anything for him. The SEAL kissed him again, sweet and light, but he was multitasking now- doing something with his hand. Slicking himself up, Danny realized with a start. That took things one unnerving step closer to real.

“Okay. I’ll go slow. It’s probably gonna burn for a minute however I do it, because….”

Steve hesitated and Danny knew exactly why. He was too classy to say it was because he was well-endowed, or because it was Danny’s first time since the last brutal rape he’d suffered years earlier- his first consensual time _ever_ for that matter, or because the ridges of scar tissue inside Danny’s ass made everything a little tighter than it might have been otherwise… but it wasn’t like Danny didn’t know all of that already, one way or another.

“Just because it probably will,” Steve settled on. “But then it’ll start to feel good if you give it a chance, okay? I know you’re scared about this but if you really want to do it you can trust me. I can make you feel good. Just try to relax. But I need to trust you too, it needs to work both ways. I need you to say if it’s too much.”

“I promise, okay. Please, just do it,” urged Danny.

And Steve was a good boy, followed orders quick, because then he was lining up and pressing in, slowly, carefully... and it felt fucking _huge _and it really _did_ burn. Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck_. Just for a minute, Danny thought he had been wrong. Just for a minute, he thought he wasn’t ready at all. That burn felt inescapable, like Danny had no choice. He knew that sensation well, that was the problem. He’d felt it before and it had always got so much worse from that point on. He’d always been left raw and bleeding.__

All remnants of the dream-like state evaporated instantly and Danny stuttered mentally on the edge of outright panic. He buried his face against Steve’s shoulder, fingers digging into his back and held on tight, counting furiously as he waited in terror for the vanquished demons in his head to reappear. For a minute it felt like that was all he could do.

Steve froze instantly, hips stilling. He whispered in Danny’s ear. “Hey! It's okay. Stay with me. It’s just you and me, babe. Just you and me. You need to stop, we stop.”

When he didn’t reply right away, Steve kissed him solidly on the forehead and started to pull out.

But then Danny’s hard-earned self-control kicked in. He stopped counting, he didn't need that any more. He didn't need fifteen. He pushed back the panic with sheer force of will.  “No!” he choked out, and his arm flashed down to grab Steve’s hip, holding him where he was. “No. Just… just give me a minute, okay?”

Steve’s eyes were full of doubt and concern again, but he nodded. He buried his face against Danny’s hair then began to press kiss after soft kiss to every part of him he could reach. “It’s okay, you’re okay. It’s just you and me,” he murmured, over and over and over again.

Danny listened, and inhaled deeply, drawing in the familiar scent he loved so much. As the panic retreated further and he started to relax, it got easier. Things got clearer again. And yes, Steve was big and Danny felt full and stretched and it burned… but it was so different from before. It didn’t really hurt, not properly. It was just the fear that it was going to get worse that was gripping him. The fear that Fat Man and his entourage were hiding inside him somewhere ready to torment him.

He squeezed his eyes tight shut, listening inside his head. It was silent. There really was no one there but him and _Steve_. Steve holding him, Steve inside him, loving him and looking after him. He felt totally vulnerable yet completely protected. He could do this, he told himself. He _could_. But, Jesus Christ, Danny needed Steve to be brave for the both of them right then. The blond man let out a shaky breath then kissed the sweat-soaked skin in front of him. “Okay, m’good. Go,” he whispered clumsily- it was all he could muster. Then he held on tight, head pressed against Steve’s shoulder.

And whatever Steve was thinking, he did as he was told again. He pressed in gently but firmly, deeper and deeper. Danny panted hard, trying to relax his body as he waited for the pain to start. But it didn't come... the slick made everything slide sweetly in spite of size of the man inside him. It was okay- it felt okay. Then Steve stopped. Danny, still hanging on tight, blinked in confusion because he wasn’t right in, not yet, but then Steve started to rock his hips just so and holy crap the man really _did_ know what he was doing. Lightening shot up Danny’s spine and he moaned helplessly, _wantonly_ , he couldn’t help it because who knew, who fucking knew it could feel like that?! Steve was moving just enough in exactly the right spot to press against his prostate over and over again. Danny’s head flopped back into the pillow. He sobbed with pleasure, then swore.

His cock had softened with his little personal crisis but as Danny's fear dropped away it started to swell again, growing hot and hard between them. Steve must have felt it right away, because a big hand pushed between their sweat-soaked bodies without hesitation. Fingers curled around its length and began to stroke him, pressure just right and in perfect time with the gentle thrusts. The sensations were incredible. The mixture of familiar and brand new explosive pleasures fried his brain. For long moments he was lost in them, lost in his own head. There was barely enough room for a flash of jealousy over the knowledge that Steve was so well-practiced because he had touched other men before him- that could wait. It was so fucking good. He’d thought it was something he needed to get through, that it would get easier with time. But Jesus, it felt like he was _made_ for this.

Then he heard Steve moan softly, a desperate sound of restrained desire. “You feel good Danny. God, you feel good,” he grunted out, voice shaking with a combination of nerves and the blatant effort of holding back.

Steve was still being careful with him, he realized. Careful not to do any of the things the men who had had him did to him. He wasn’t grabbing his hair or biting or panting against his neck or thrusting hard in search of his own fulfilment. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t what Danny wanted. He wasn’t scared, not anymore- the residual fear had been driven away by intense pleasure. Steve had held up his side of the bargain- he’d shown him it was okay. Now it was up to Danny to get them both where he wanted them to be and that wasn’t here, this one-sided tip-toeing thing.

“Harder. C’mon babe. I want it all. I want you,” he whispered, deep voice rasping like he’d been screaming out loud and maybe he had, who knew. He flashed a hand up to grab Steve’s head, fingers tangling in his hair, yanking him down to his hungry mouth. He caught those wide lips with a rough, possessive kiss. Steve whimpered in response as Danny nipped and bit at his mouth, his tongue, his neck.

Still Steve hesitated, still he held back, and Danny yanked the dark hair back, pulling Steve’s face away from him until he could see him properly. Their eyes locked together and time seemed to stop. Danny saw fear lingering in his partner’s gaze, but as the taller man looked at him, he _had_ to see the growing animal need on open display on Danny’s face.

To underline his point, Danny leaned up and gripped Steve’s bottom lip between his teeth, then dropped his head back to the pillow, stretching that lip downwards. He held Steve’s gaze in silent challenge.

That was it. Steve lost it. The hesitation disappeared and his eyes went wild. He growled, then started to drive into Danny, pounding desperately against him with a decadent slapping of wet skin. He dipped his head to bite at Danny’s neck and take his mouth savagely. Danny wrestled right back, fighting for dominance in the kiss, fire and passion passing between them. Then Steve pressed his forehead to Danny’s and they panted helplessly into each other’s open mouths as the SEAL finally chased his own pleasure.

It felt amazing, nothing short of amazing and yeah it still burned and those powerful thrusts were bruising, but it was Steve and it felt so fucking good. Danny was so desperate to come he thought he was going to explode, but at the same time he never wanted it to end, _never_. Jesus his brain really was melting.

But Steve was working to some unseen timetable. He grabbed Danny’s dick again and worked it hard, like he was on a mission to make Danny come in five seconds flat. It worked. His orgasm hit him like a freight train, unstoppable and out of control. He cried out at its intensity, hot splashes striping his stomach and his senses checking out entirely for long, white-hot seconds. He forced his eyes open the instant he was able because he didn’t want to miss it, any of it.

He saw Steve watching him, fucking him through the aftershocks, his pupils blown wide. More hard thrusts followed, one, two, three, then Steve shoved himself right in, balls deep, head and neck arching back in ecstasy. He cried out between clenched teeth as he came hard, cock pulsing deep inside Danny, and he just kept right on pushing through the spasms like he could somehow get even deeper, somehow get closer. It was the hottest thing Danny had ever experienced in his life.

Danny lay there after, unable to move, fighting to catch his breath. His lover was still deep inside him, supporting himself with elbows either side of Danny’s chest, forehead pressed to the blond man’s shoulder. He was heaving, flanks straining like a freaking hard-ridden racehorse.

It was beautiful, Steve was fucking beautiful, and once Danny had got his shit together the whole thing had _felt_ fucking beautiful. There was nothing sordid or ugly or brutal or scary about what they had just done. Nothing. There was no room for bad memories or negative feelings. Danny knew for sure he’d done the right thing, pushing for this. He’d faced his last fear the only way he knew how and what had happened as a result… yeah, it was beautiful. It was _hot_.  

Danny laughed, he couldn’t help it. Just a little, then raucously. Steve’s face snapped up and he stared in confusion, then followed him helplessly, for all he was plainly unsure what they were laughing about. But then Danny was _crying_. Tears ran down his face, into his hair.

Steve looked horror-struck and he made a move to pull out but Danny grabbed his hips and kept him right where he was.

Danny shook his head, tears still spilling out. “No, I’m okay,” he sobbed. “I just... I fucking love you, okay? That’s all, I just fucking love you. Thank you.”

Steve frowned in concern, kissed his tears as they fell. “I love you too,” he panted, breaths cool against Danny’s flushed skin. “We good?”

His emotions were all over the place. Danny laughed again, grinning widely even as his tears ran, and there was an edge of hysteria in the noise. “Are we _good_? Are you serious right now? You just made me come for the first time in… how many years? What do you think? You’re fucking amazing, you know that? I take back almost everything I’ve ever said about you. Seriously, is there anything you’re not good at?”

That handsome face lit up slowly in response to the rambling praise. Steve ducked his head to kiss him again, long and languid. Then he jerked his hips, eliciting another wanton moan from the blond man.

Apparently pretty damn pleased with himself, Steve pulled back a touch and fixed him with a smug smile. “Oh, okay. So is _this_ kind of relationship going to be good enough for you, Danno?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively like the dork that he was before he dipped back down for more lazy kisses.

“Don’t push it.” Danny whispered against his lips. “Practice makes perfect though, right?”

THE END

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who made it this far! Love Swifters.


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